1. The plurality of ways of forming a family; an ancient story with specific contemporary characteristics.

The family experience, which appears to be the most common in time and space, differs therefore more or less profoundly between various cultures and groups, each of which are affected in a different manner by social change. This does not mean that the family is a simple passive finale of social change. It is rather one of the contexts in which there is competition in defining ways and meanings of social change, albeit it with different levels of freedom, depending upon the circumstances.

So why does the pluralisation of ways of forming a family seem to be a new phenomenon, and such a radical one, that to some it appears to be a risk as far as social cohesion is concerned? In my opinion this happens for two reasons. Firstly, this diversification no longer concerns only different societies or historical periods, but increasingly occurs within individual societies. Secondly, this diversification increasingly appears to be the result of intentional choices made by individuals or groups, which, to a greater or lesser extent redefine models of common sense and consolidate norms, when not simply opposing them outright.

As far as the first aspect is concerned, it is sufficient to observe data for Italy, one of the Western democratic countries in which internal pluralisation of the ways of forming families has occurred late in the day. Although, due to the lack of reliable statistics, this data does not include the phenomenon of homosexual couples and single parent families, nor figures concerning children born to hetero or homosexual parents through IV fertilisation thanks to a donor, the data indicates a rising heterogeneity. This is partly the result of different ways of forming families (cohabitation and reproduction without marriage, separations, divorces and second marriages) and partly due to the mingling of cultural models of the family that are more or less different also at a legal level (families of foreigners and mixed marriages), as well as, to a certain extent, to differentiation throughout the cycle of individual and family life. In 2012, about 25% of children were born to unmarried parents, although most were living together. This is still a minority compared to Germany or France and to almost all first-born children in Nordic countries, but it remains a percentage unthinkable only a few decades ago. In 1970 the figure was only 2.2%. In 2012, 6.9% of couples living together were not married, while during the seventies the figure was only about 2%. Furthermore, one in three marriages had been preceded by cohabitation. In 15.3% of families there was only one parent present in the home, while 30% of those interviewed lived alone. At least one of the two partners in 6.9% of couples had been married before, marriages which had usually ended in divorce rather than widowhood. If this previous marriage involved children, they became de facto members of two different families, moving more or less regularly between them.

Therefore, in Italy too, while also remaining within a heterosexual context, families consisting of a married couple with both having children is becoming, in the best of cases, a phase in individual and family life that may be reduced not only by children leaving their original family home (which in Italy occurs later than elsewhere), but also by the rising habit, on the one hand, of living together and also of having children without or before getting married, and on the other, increased marital instability.

Furthermore, there was at least one foreigner in 8.3% of families and one-fifth of these families was “mixed” as far as nationalities were concerned, hence one of the partners was a foreigner. These are families that potentially refer to different ways of setting up a family as well as different normative and juridical systems as far as inter-generational and inter-genre relations between couples are concerned. To this plurality of ways of forming a family within a heterosexual context, one must add the existence of homosexual couples, without however having reliable data regarding their numbers, with or without children, as well as the previous heterosexual relations of one or both partners. Some estimate that at least 800,000 minors live with one homosexual parent or with a homosexual couple.

Moreover, among heterosexual couples procreation does not only occur through sexual relations between the partners, and thus the bloodlines of both parents. In addition to adoption, resorting to artificial insemination with a donor (forbidden in Italy but possible to achieve by travelling to a neighbouring country such as Spain) allows couples (or single people) access to procreation that could not otherwise take place, thereby upsetting the link not only between sexuality and procreation, but between consanguinity and procreation. If procreation is no longer the fundamental objective of marriage, being unable to procreate is no longer an unsurmountable obstacle to procreation.

2. The main recent changes at the origin of differentiation in the West

Among the complex change processes that have influenced and are influencing the manner in which families are formed in the West, I wish to list five that have played an important role in contemporary processes affecting the definition and re-definition of families, as well as marking the differences between various countries. The first concerns gender relationships and identities. The manner in which male and above all female “normality” is defined nowadays, and what is expected of them, has greatly changed compared to just half a century ago, causing changes in both the organisation of a family’s daily life and in relations between men and women. This change, however, did not take place in the same way and during the same period in all countries, not even in all developed Western countries. One can find clues to these differences in the different percentages of women with family responsibilities who work and the different levels of marital instability.

The second change concerns relations between generations. This depends above all on the changed demographic context which today’s generations face in developed countries, marked by two phenomena responsible for an aging population; faced with a greatly reduced level of fecundity that has drastically reduced the number of children per family, people live much longer. One therefore has fewer brothers or sisters, but more grandparents (and it is more likely that one will be a grandparent for a long time). But relationships involving power and authority between generations have also changed, as indirectly indicated by the emergence of the awareness that children are subject with full rights.

The third phenomenon concerns the questioning of heterosexuality and hetero-rules as the foundation for a family. Paradoxically, this last phenomenon owes a great deal to the processes that have changed heterosexual families from within, with the emergence of the centrality of love, the separation between sexuality and procreation and between parenthood and biological reproduction. This last distinction has certainly been strengthened by the development of artificial insemination techniques allowing for the possibility of resorting to donors. That is not, however, the only option. Adoption has a long history, and its meaning has changed over time, emphasising aspects involving the assumption of parenting responsibilities rather than genealogical continuity. The rise in so-called blended families, in which at least one of the two partners has been married before and there can be children born from previous relationships with a mix and sharing of parental responsibilities, indicates how parenthood does not end with the biological relationship, nor is this its only basis.

The fourth phenomenon concerns the different ways in which Western countries, and in particular European ones, have integrated, at a legal level, the pluralisation of ways and perceiving the family. Nowadays, Family Law differs as much if not more than the electoral system or social protection even in bordering countries. This may result in conflicts between different legal systems. This legal differentiation, furthermore, has become increasingly evident and known. The globalisation of information, the increased transnational mobility of people and migratory phenomena have, on the one hand, made accessible, well beyond a small circle of scholars, experiences regarding different social and institutional as well as individual ways of defining families and relations between genders and generations. On the other hand, this has brought to light conflict not only between different laws, but also between different institutions; this happens between different national judicial systems as well as between national and transnational judicial systems (for example the European Court and the Court of Human Rights).

The fifth phenomenon concerns the increasing centrality the family has assumed in public debate and intervention. Families have never been a purely private issue. However, the times we live in are times in which public debate and intervention on the family – whether addressing juridical norms or social policies – seems far more explicit, motivated by interests and concerns ranging from the demographic issue to that of investments in human capital, from the acknowledgment of the right to freedom to concern regarding social stability and cohesion.

One could say, that perhaps never before has the issue of what a family means been the object of such a broad public debate, also questioning the obviousness of the fact that each person forms and experiences his/her own family. Simultaneously, this phenomenon has made evident to what extent the family, and the manner in which relationships forming it are perceived, are a social outcome that emerges from the tension between norms and individual and collective experiences.

These are not consistent phenomena, nor do they have unambiguous meanings. The paths followed by different countries may differ, and at time significantly so. Within the same country there can be non-homogeneity and even contradictions between laws and objective circumstances and also between series of laws or policies developed in different sectors. Even when remaining within one single legal framework, hence the family’s legal basis – the most relevant in societies with a Civil Code due to the consequences this has on the status of people and their relationships – there exists a plurality of sources that do not always coincide with the definition of family. Civil law, laws on social security, insurance law, registry laws, criminal law and so on may not coincide and at times may be in conflict. In Italy, for example, an unmarried couple living together might be considered a family as far as family income is concerned, the basis on which kindergarten fees are based as well as the right to council housing, or to exclude an injured partner from compensation owed to “third parties” following a car crash. They are not considered a family as far as inheritance laws are concerned, or those regulating the right to make health-related decisions for someone unable to decide autonomously.

It is this at times conflicting heterogeneity of definitions that indicates how, far from acknowledging and attributing juridical status to “all nature existing beyond” the social, religious and juridical norms that nowadays create a family, as they always have done. These are rules establishing on each occasion what in “nature” is considered socially legitimate (for example procreation within a marriage, conjugal heterosexuality) and what is not (for example procreation outside marriage, outside a stable heterosexual partnership, homosexuality),what is “natural”, but also what is explicitly artificial (for example adoption or some forms of artificial procreation), what constitutes a family and what instead cannot achieve this status; who can have the right to join his/her family in the case of migration and who is excluded.

3. Amid regulation and change

In the West, the history of forms of regulating the family is the history of a progressive broadening of the field of what is acknowledged as socially possible and legitimate, while also the history of redefinitions of the balance between individual obligations and rights. In the West, including Italy, there has been a progressive reduction of the number of blood relationships that can be defined as incest; natural children are now equal to legitimate ones and even married people can acknowledge them. Adoption has changed and the meaning has been broadened and it is no longer a choice made to mainly provide a solution to sterility; marriage has become reversible and it is possible to remarry without being widowed. Adultery, especially for women, is no longer considered a crime against morals or social cohesion and nor is cohabitation without marriage; contraception, and thus controlling fertility, has become legal, clearly separating sexuality and procreation as well as sexuality and marriage. In most Western countries, although not in Italy, obligations and responsibilities of heterosexual adults living together now have legal acknowledgement to the extent of being very similar to marriage. Similar progress has, more recently, been made for homosexual couples. In a number of countries the de-stigmatization of procreation without marriage and the spreading of one parent families, especially women, following the spreading of separation and divorce, has led to adoption being allowed for single people, acknowledging that parenting skills are not developed and exercised only by couples.

All these transformations have taken place not because of a greater knowledge of “nature”, but because of a changed perception of what is socially acceptable and also because more people have become involved in negotiating and defining what a family is, thereby reducing the state and the churches’ monopolistic power in this area. While the state remains the final context in which laws are passed, it is increasingly obliged to take into account what individuals have to say, with the plurality and diversity of their values, and with their freedom. Even the Catholic Church, which more than other Christian churches has tried and tries to maintain an unambiguous definition of what a family is, has over time had to introduce changes. Hence, while in the encyclical entitled Casti Connubi marriage’s main objective was procreation, as well as the remedium concupiscientiae (especially male), the Second Vatican Council document entitled Gaudium et Spes added the married couple’s relational and loving wellbeing. The custom involving the annulment of marriage has been progressively changed, albeit with alternating events and a number of semantic balancing acts, faced with the need to address increased requests to put an end to unsatisfactory marriages.

The most recent changes occurred when Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in an article published by L’Osservatore Romano in October, said that many marriages could be considered invalid because they are not based on “a Christian understanding of marriage, especially its indissolubility and its openness to children.” This is an understanding many Christians do not have, influenced as they are by the “mentality of the times.” This possibility is formulated, albeit in the form of a question concerning whether or not it would be appropriate to simplify annulment procedures. It is part of the questionnaire on family issues sent to all dioceses to learn the opinion of the Catholic community all over the world on the most current controversial issues concerning the family – couples living together, recognition of homosexual couples, contraception, artificial insemination with a donor – in view of the synod devoted to this subject that will be held next year. The Catholic Church is late in addressing these issues in a public debate with its own communities, compared to what Protestant churches have done. Protestants have, in various cases, addressed these subjects at a doctrinal and not just at a pastoral level. In Germany, for example, in June 2013 the Evangelical Church approved a document (Between autonomy and dependence. Strengthening the family as a community of trust), in which not only is a plural concept of the family accepted, but also affirming that this plural concept should have a theological foundation.

In Italy things appear to be moving in the same direction. A document drafted by a special commission of ministers, theologians and jurists presented to the Synod of Waldensian and Methodist Churches in August 2013 was sent to various local communities to be discussed. It is based on the affirmation that “There is no static and immutable concept of marriage, nor is there an inescapable link between a family and marriage or between family and procreation.” Conversely, the various forms of family, including those consisting of a homosexual couple, are all “equally important.” Communities and the faithful are therefore called upon to reflect not only, or above all, in terms of charity, tolerance or respect, but on the very principles at the basis of the definition of a family. This proposal will, and has already led to controversy within ecclesial communities, as already happened years ago when the Italian Waldensian Church decided to bestow blessings on homosexual couples. The main difference between these positions and those of the Catholic hierarchy, however, lie in the fact that the German Evangelical Church and the Italian Waldensian Methodist Church (like other Protestant churches in other countries) have effectively stated that there is no unchangeable and single teaching as far as the family is concerned. The Catholic Church’s questionnaire instead begins with questions (in the first part) on the knowledge, teachings and acceptance of the doctrinal definition, of the teachings. This is stated as firm and immutable, but then later asks how pastoral care should address behaviours and practices that do not conform with those indicated in the teachings and by “natural law.”

This should not, however, underestimate the passage addressing a pure enunciation of the doctrine (and concerns about its inadequate knowledge and adherence among believers and in civil society) to pastoral concern about how to welcome those whose practices do not correspond to those approved by the teachings. This is not the place for a debate on how far this dual outlook can last, as exemplified by Pope Francis’ pastoral care and the questionnaire itself, since, on the one hand, the doctrine remains firm and, on the other, possibilities are broadened. It is interesting here to remark on how the Catholic Church too is, with difficulty, trying to find compromises between a doctrine defined as untouchable and the changes in behaviour as well as in the world in which such changes occur. All this is taking place not without tactical cunningness. Returning to the issue of the invalidity of a marriage that is not based on “correct Christian understanding”, in Italy there are far greater and almost unlimited chances now of obtaining an annulment of a religious wedding as well as its civil consequences. The rules applied to such marriages, on the basis of the agreement between the Holy See and Italy, automatically transfer the effects of the church wedding to the civil level, applied both to the marriage and to its annulment, even if such an annulment is pronounced on the basis of different criteria to the very restricted ones established for an annulment (different to divorce) of just the civil marriage. The paradox is that in this manner, in Italy, those who were careful to marry under the rules of this Treaty and not just in a registry office, will find it easier to obtain an annulment than a divorce. Catholic MPs, also under pressure applied by the Catholic hierarchy, continue to impose divorce that takes place through two lengthy (and expensive) procedures. One could think that, with this broadening of the range of conditions allowing the annulment of a marriage, the Catholic hierarchy might (also) try and oppose the increasingly popular phenomenon of registry office marriages rather than in church. Constantly rising ever since the eighties, even for first marriages, these registry office ceremonies in some large cities in central-northern Italy, are the most popular.

Translated by Francesca Simmons 

Paper presented at the conference on “Family regulation in societies with fluid border”; Milan, November 2014

References:
This paper is based mainly on the following books:
C. Saraceno, Coppie e famiglie, non è questione di natura, Milan, Feltrinelli, 2012
C. Saraceno, “Non è solo questione di tolleranza”, Iride, 26 (68), 2013, pp. 85-99
C. Saraceno and M. Naldini, Sociologia della famiglia, Bologna, il Mulino, 2013 (3rd ed. magazine)
The document prepared for the Synod of the Waldensian Methodist Church in August 2013 can be found at http://www.chiesavaldese.org/documents/relaz_sinodo2013.pdf The German Evangelical Church’s document can be found at http://www.ekd.de/download/20130617_familie_als_verlaessliche_gemeinschaft.pdf
The questionnaire prepared in view of the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on topics related to the family and evangelization can be found at http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/fileadmin/user_upload/File_Versione_originale/questionario.pdf