Franca Viola

refused marry the man who raped her

At the age of fifteen, the Sicilian Franca Viola became engaged to a local mafioso, Filippo Melodia. She left him when he was arrested for theft. Filippo became obsessed with her, kidnapped her for eight days and raped her. In the South of Italy in the sixties, social convention (supported by the penal code of that time) dictated that a woman should marry the man to whom she had lost her virginity. Viola refused.

With the unwavering support of her family, Franca Viola refused to marry Filippo Melodia. Instead, she sued him for kidnapping and rape. Her family had to pay the price for their support: they were ostracised by many of the townspeople, who even burned down their vineyard and barn. Viola’s stance sparked a national conversation about gender-based violence, and the trial became a cause célèbre; even the parliament got involved. Melodia was sentenced to ten years in prison. Viola became a symbol of the cultural progress and emancipation of women in post-war Italy.

The status quo in Franca Viola’s time:

The Italian Penal Code allowed a rapist to have his crime erased if he married his victim. According to article 544, rape was ‘a crime against public morality’ rather than a personal offense. This law thus formalised the idea of the so-called rehabilitating marriage.

Another law (art. 587) determined that a murderer could get a sentence reduction for ‘honour killing’, a murder that was committed to protect the dignity of the family. Honour killings often happened to women or girls by male family members, due to the belief that the victim brought dishonour or shame upon the family name.

It was not until 1996 that sexual violence was recognized in Italy as a crime against the person, rather than a crime against ‘public morality’.

THE PRESENT