The hospices for battered wives (malmaritate) can be found in Italy in the sixteenth century… malmaritate literally meaning unhappily married was a state presented as the woman’s problem to which only she had the solution (by modifying her life). Her husband’s infidelity, waste and violence are not addressed as problem he must control but rather conditions she must endure. This eventually gives rise to casa del soccorso di San paolo 16th century Bologna a refuge deemed very necessary for women who could not afford to live outside the home or without their husband.
This refuge included women in abusive marriages (malmaritate), victims of rape, prostitutes, girls betrayed by suitors (broken promises of marriage in exchange for their virginity) the knowledge that there have been protections for battered women for over four hundred years strengthens the study … and gives a sense of continuing commitment regardless of the patriarchal social consciousness of the age to women over time and national boundaries… women didn’t just wake up in the late 19 century.
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