An abrogative referendum on the divorce law was held in Italy on 12 May 1974.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1048 Voters were asked whether they wanted to repeal a government law passed three years earlier allowing divorce for the first time in modern Italian history. Those voting "yes" wanted to outlaw divorce as had been the case before the law came into effect, and those voting "no" wanted to retain the law and their newly gained right to divorce. The referendum was defeated by margin of 59.26% to 40.74% on a voter turnout of 87.72% out of 37 million eligible voters, thus allowing the divorce laws to remain in force. This vote was the first of its kind in the country, being the first regular legislative referendum held by the Italian Republic 27 years after the Italian constitution, which allowed such referendums, was approved. It was considered a major victory for the civil rights and

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movements, and for the

Italian Radical Party The Italian Radical Party ( it, Partito Radicale Italiano), also known as the Historical Radical Party (''Partito Radicale storico''), was a radical, republican, secularist and social-liberal political party in Italy. History Since 1877, t ...

Initial petitions

Signatures and petitions for the referendum were collected by

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groups led by

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with very strong support from the Catholic church.

Political party positions

The Christian Democrats and the

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Italian Social Movement The Italian Social Movement ( it, Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) was a neo-fascist political party in Italy. A far-right party, it presented itself until the 1990s as the defender of Italian fascism's legacy, and later moved towards national ...

intensely campaigned for a yes vote to abolish the law and make divorce illegal again. Their main themes were the safeguarding of the traditional

nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...

model and the Roman Catechism. Most left-wing political forces, the main ones being the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian Communist Party, supported the no faction. Intense campaigning for a no vote also came from Marco Pannella of the

which had been petitioning for a right to divorce in Italy since the early 1960s.

Confusion about voting

The wording of the referendum statement caused significant confusion, with some people not understanding that they had to vote "No" in order to retain the right to divorce or vote "Yes" in order to outlaw divorce. It was argued that the wording made the statement insufficiently clear, and some campaigners from the no camp stated that without this confusion the no vote might have been even higher than the 59% obtained. (See

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Censorship

The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 held in April of that year was not broadcast on the Italian state television channel RAI because of Italy's entry, a song by Gigliola Cinquetti. Despite the contest taking place more than a month before the planned vote, and despite Cinquetti eventually coming in second place, Italian censors refused the contest and song to be shown or heard. RAI censors felt the song, titled " Sì" ( Italian for "yes") and containing lyrics constantly repeating the word "Sì", could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote yes in the referendum. The song remained censored on most Italian state television and radio stations for over a month.

Results

References