ABSTRACT
In Italy, family law has taken time to gain awareness of gender issues – an awareness that has passed through an evolving interpretation of constitutional provisions, as well as through major legislative reforms in the matter of marriage, divorce and parental authority. Attention to the connections between gender and migration from the perspective of family law lays bare some paradoxes in how gender equality is framed and guaranteed. There is one element of the interaction between Italian family law and migration law that the Italian experience shares with that of other Western legal systems. Paradoxically, the rejection of claims for multicultural accommodation not only passed through simplistic biases associated with foreign family laws, but, it helped reinforce an 'orientalist' idea of migrant women and their position within the family. While the most problematic issues for establishing or recognizing migrants' family models have concerned polygamy, conflict with public order has been asserted for unilateral repudiation as well.
