An Italian politician has proposed a law that would make it automatic for babies to be assigned their mother’s surname at birth, a step that would mark a rupture with a centuries-old tradition and has sparked a fiery debate.
Dario Franceschini, a former culture minister from the centre-left Democratic party, argues that such legislation would “right a historic wrong”.
His proposal follows a 2022 ruling by the constitutional court which defined the practice of newborns automatically taking their father’s surname as “discriminatory and harmful to the identity of the child”. The court said children should be given both parents’ surnames in the order they decided, unless they agreed their children should take just one of them. If there was indecision or disagreement, it added, a judge would have the final say.
New legislation approved by parliament was required to implement the ruling, made six months before Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing coalition came to power. The topic was buried in parliament before being revived by Franceschini, who argues that rather than creating “endless problems” with double-barrelled surnames, or choosing between the mother’s or father’s, a law should be established for only the maternal surname to be used.
“It is a simple thing and also compensation for a centuries-old injustice that has had not only a symbolic value, but has been a cultural and social source of gender inequality,” Franceschini added.
Like in many countries, children born in Italy are automatically registered with their father’s surname, with the mother’s surname usually permitted only if the father is absent from the child’s life.
Franceschini said he would present the bill in the coming days, angering members of Meloni’s coalition.
“Here are the great priorities of the Italian left,” Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right League, wrote on X. “Of course, let’s wipe these fathers off the face of the earth; that way we’ll solve all the problems.”
Federico Mollicone, from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, said Franceschini’s vision would mark a shift “from patriarchy to matriarchy”. Mollicone was, however, open to the possibility of children assuming the surnames of both parents.
Pierantino Zanettin, from the Forza Italia party, said the move appeared to be “a provocation aimed, above all, at media attention”, while Giulia Bongiorno, from the League, called for “a point of balance that does not make any parent invisible”.
Franceschini was mostly applauded by other opposition members, apart from a sceptical Carlo Calenda, who leads the centrist Azione party. “Don’t we have any other priorities? Boh,” he said.