Writing a novel set in 1960’s Naples, Italy, and I have some questions

[idkwhattoput]

What would it be like to grow up Roman Catholic? (Traditions, lifestyle, prayers, religious interpretation ect.?)

Would a girl in 1960s Naples be allowed to play football with her male peers? (Not necessarily with validation from the people around her, just in general)

How common were male-female friendships?

Did girls smoke as guys did? In public or in private?

What was it like being a lesbian in 1960’s Naples Italy?

If you moved to a more “modern” city like, say, Milan or Turin, could you and a same-sex partner live together without raising suspicions?

What was the stance on women wearing pants in Naples at the time?

What would set apart a not-so religious Catholic family from a very religious one?

Could two girls decide to be each other’s dancing partners at a party?

If a girl had short hair, but not super short, like a bob cut, what would people think of her?

Similarly, if a girl wore her father’s old clothes (aka men’s clothing), what would be thought of her?

Were alcoholics overtly frowned upon?

Comments

[moon_custafer]

IDK anything about Naples specifically, but:

When writing period settings it’s usually worth keeping in mind that societies that disapprove of homosexuality aren’t necessarily focussed on looking for it: heterosexual scandals are going to be statistically more common, so the gossips are going to be focused on male/female friendships. Also, unmarried people through much of history have either lived with their parents and/or siblings, or with roommates, so two people of the same gender sharing an apartment won’t automatically ping anybody’s gaydar *unless* they act stereotypically gay (whatever that looks like in their society) while doing so.

Women’s hairstyles in 1960s Italy— is this the early 60s or the late 60s? If it’s early ‘60s, short-ish hair was fairly fashionable and had been since the 1950s: https://glamourdaze.com/2015/03/the-italian-cut-hairstyle-craze-of-1953.html
If it’s the late 1960s, then a bob will be out of fashion but more likely to be perceived as frumpy than butch. A woman wearing her dad’s old clothes, otoh, would have been seen as fairly odd, since it wouldn’t even be a case of wearing trousers designed for women (which were a thing, though for casual wear only).

How old is the girl playing football? Prepubescent girl in a neighborhood game with the other kids, maybe. Teen joining the local amateur football club, probably not. (This Wikipedia article on countries that banned women’s football (after it had been popular for a while) may be of interest). ETA -- link seems to have gone missing, trying another link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_association_football#FA_ban_(1921%E2%80%931970)

Smoking— https://www.niussp.org/health-and-mortality/smoking-in-italy-since-world-war-iifumer-en-italie-depuis-1950/

Alcoholics— male or female? Wine or other alcoholic beverage? Noticeably impaired in public, or frequent social drinker who usually remains polite and coherent? Most times and places disapprove of alcoholism, but they don’t always have the same idea of what counts as alcoholism.

Hope these thoughts help.

[msilverstar]

I strongly recommend you read Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet -- it starts in the 1950s but things didn't change that much, especially for kids, in the 60s

[akinoame]

Can't speak much to Italy, but my family's Catholic and my mother grew up in a very Catholic family in NY during the '60s. In her case, she went to a Catholic school (one of her older sisters did get expelled for behavior and had to attend the public high school). I think my dad spent some time there too before going to the public school (he immigrated from Central America) because he also remembers getting rapped on the knuckles with a ruler by the nuns. Mom remembers them checking to make sure that her skirts reached below her knees, which she regularly brought up whenever my sisters and I were having issues with public school dress codes (her comparison was not out of approval, btw).

Attending Mass on Sundays was a must, and at the time it would have been in Latin. Girls were expected to cover their heads, and Mom remembers sometimes having to do so with a handkerchief. This appears to have been repealed in 1983, and a quick Google search indicates that continuing the practice is controversial. But at the time, it's possible your character would have been denied Eucharist if her head was not covered. St. Peter's Basilica has an official dress code that can help.

Depending on when in the '60s this happens, you might be dealing with the succession of a Pope, which can lead to massive upheavals in church practices and politics (much like happened between Benedict XVI stepping down and Francis taking over). John XIII died in 1963 and remains very highly respected. That Wikipedia article notes that he spoke to youth on their level when visiting a reform school, officially apologized for the Church's history of antisemitism and worked toward reconciliation with Jews, and offered to mediate between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Paul VI was elected next and made a lot of reforms, including getting rid of a lot of the pomp and circumstance, including the papal tiara, which caused fuss with traditionalists. He was the first Pope to leave Italy since the 1800s, elevated the role of Mary in the Church, condemned birth control, and conducted outreach to Protestant, Orthodox, and Coptic Churches. Mass changed big time, including the direction the priest stands while blessing the Eucharist.

So...without going too nitty-gritty into things that would probably embarrass my family, I would recommend looking at that period, and particularly Paul VI's reforms, to get an idea of what "not so religious vs. very religious" would look like. Someone who's "not so religious" might have felt more welcome under Paul's reforms, while someone "very religious" might have been aghast at the changes.

I was raised roman catholic in Poland.

[(Anonymous)]

- Life is divided into sacraments. Most people treat each sacrament as a sign of maturing, entering the next life stage.
- Guilt and shame. Pleasure in the profanum (opposite of the sacrum, the mundane) is strictly tied to shame. Having a character, especially a younger person, experience some form of pleasure, like getting more money for their first communion celebration, would propably result in late night prayers about being vain and greedy. That's not to say that everything good makes people guilty. It's just that when figuring out how catholicism works, people often take to heart, how you have to humble yourself for experiencing joy. So sometimes that feeling hits hard.
- The community of parishes. This could be a regional thing, but parishes are often quite close to each other and gossip spreads fast.
- Priests can do whatever the fuck they want, my childhood priest had fucking peacocks behind the church for some reason, like our parish was pretty poor, where and why did he get those birds.
- My grandmother would give me candy to shut me up during mass, I just think that's a nice detail for younger characters with adhd or short attention spans.