ITALY: Undoing the Gordian Knot

"For whoever divorces in Italy," says Mario Guttieres, a prominent Rome matrimonial lawyer, "love has been over for a long time." Take the case of Angiola Gattoronchieri. Married in 1907, she and her two sons were left behind eight years later when her husband took off for Argentina, never to be heard from again. She spent 56 years as one of Italy's "white widows"—women whose husbands have emigrated and left them behind, still legally and indissolubly married. Last week Signora Gattoronchieri, now 103 years old, became the oldest person to obtain a...

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