Nations and National Codes in Europe: The Testo unico as a Model
If we turn to the larger European scene, we can see that in the early twentieth century it teemed with national codes. What is more, legislation in some sectors rapidly diverged, and it was further complicated (if not confused) by social motives and social demands often expressed in spontaneous riots or planned, organized conflicts.
Political circles tended increasingly to seek compromise solutions. A new problem was thus posed, but there was at least a partial return to older ways in collections of norms that resembled the eighteenth-century consolidations more than the codes. In Italy such a collection was called a testo unico—a “one text.”The testi unici were not “by nature” as organic and systematic as the codes; unlike the codes, they were not burdened (and for good reason) with the task of proposing new principles, nor could they offer an opportunity to test new hermeneutic criteria.
To take only one example, a cTesto Unico sul Iavoro delle donne e dei fanciulli” (Unique Text on the Labor of Women and Children) was drawn up on 10 November 1907 and published on 16 January 1908. The example is an important one, as this testo unico attempted to bring together and to strike a balance between two sets of social problems that were particularly acute in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Italy. On the one hand, it dealt with juridical topics concerning labor that showed the effects of the labor struggles that were rampant (during these same years, the first “strike” actions in the newly consolidated industries of northern Italy were taking place). On the other hand, it dealt with the juridical topic of the “protection” of women and children—a question that jurists still spoke of in terms of “protection,” disregarding the more radical demands for equality of the sexes advanced and defended by the feminist movements of the age. In the dominant point of view the preeminent and essential function of women was childbearing and the raising and guidance of children, which was why the human condition and the health of women deserved special regard in the home and, with even more reason, in the factory.
In the meantime the first rifts began to be apparent in the Italian Codice Civile of 1865 and in the Codice di Commereio of 1883, and some attempt was made to repair the damage with stopgap legislation in the form of bills. One such attempt was the law of 17 July 1919 (not coincidentally, soon after the end of World War I), which abrogated a number of articles of the civil code (numbers 134,135,136,137, and part of article 1743) on marital authorization. Articles 13,14, and 15 on the same topic were eliminated from the commercial code as well, and articles 252 and 273 in that same document on the “family council” were modified.
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