Viewed from stereotypic and monolithic notions of the role of patriarchy, the subordination and silencing of women, and the interpretation of consensus as unchanging adherence to dominant values, the Italian family is often viewed as a major obstacle to change. It is regarded and portrayed as endemic to the traditional life and backwardness of Italy and especially of southern Italy, an instrument of unmitigated opperssion on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, of the Fascist regime, and, later, of Christian Democratic ideology and practices. The family has played a key role in the configuration of Italian national identity tied to the regulation of marriage and divorce, conceptions of gender and sexuality, health, morals, and procreation. It has also been crucial in the dissolution of traditional values and behavior. The family has been the property not only of Italian popular culture but of American-Italian culture, associated with generational differences, with the notion of passion and revenge, and with the Mafia. It is an object of veneration and obsession, the material of melodrama, and also the butt of humor.

The history of the Italian family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was, contrary to the folklore of family life, rather varied, “making it quite difficult to identify a single type that could be reasonably characterized as the Italian family.” Not only are there regional variations, there is variation within regions. These depend on economic activities and family practices, and involve class differentials, status, the land, and agrarian and urban forms of life.