Hello and thank you for downloading witness from the BBC World Service.

Every day this week we are looking at stories from around the world about love and relationships.

Today we're going back to 1974 when Italians voted in favor of divorce in a referendum.

I'm Alita Joya and I've been talking to two women who were involved in a campaign that galvanized Italy.

The battle for divorce in Italy was a long battle.

Divorce for the first time shaped the deep roots of our society which were based on the family.

It's a case extraordinary in Italy in

divorce in Italy had an extraordinary effect.

It fixed so many dramatic situations.

It was a panacea. For me, it was truly a great liberation. Frank Esperanza's story inspired one of the lawyers who wrote Italy's first divorce law, which was actually passed in 1970.

As a young woman,

Frank Esperanza married on the advice of her parents

but soon regretted it.

I didn't want to get married. I wanted to go to university. I had a daughter with my first husband but I was not in love with him.

Our relationship lasted three more years and then I fell in love with a poet and writer and moved in with him.

After that the tragedy began I had to leave my daughter because adultery was still a crime.

I was only allowed to see her twice a month at my parents place. I was desperate. I kept

crying for my daughter. In those days a woman who left her husband and child behind would be ostracized and excluded by the community

People wouldn't even look at you in the street. My parents hurled insults at me every time I went back to see my daughter they would call me a whore.

I didn't have any friends.

Everybody turned against me.

How did you feel when you were walking down the street and people would avoid eye contact.

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