Italian citizenship?

Question:how come before 1948 you couldn't get Italian citizenship through the mother? I guess it's out of historical curiosity

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: how come before 1948 you couldn't get Italian citizenship through the mother? I guess it's out of historical curiosity

Patriarchial societies struggled with modernizing their rules. The reality is that Italy as a nation was very young in 1948 and it took them a few years to catch up with the more liberal ideas coming in from western Europe and the US. Until WWII, most of Southern Europe and Eastern Europe maintained a standard that citizenship was held by men and that women and children held the citizenship of the husband and father. It was true in the US until the 1905/06 reforms.

When women and children were property, only the "man of the house" had rights of citizenship. Luckily, that fell aside and was replaced with universal sufferage.