`Mamma mia' is no joke to a nation of Italian men

ROME - When Pino Liuzzo divorced in his early 30s, he did what most Italian men of his age would do: He moved back in with his mamma, who did his cooking and ironed his shirts.

Liuzzo, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rome, remarried at age 53. After he and his French wife honeymooned in the United States, Liuzzo brought his laundry home for his mother to wash.

When his wife, Chantal, recently reminded him of this, Liuzzo could only shrug sheepishly. "This is a very Italian habit. I am a typical Italian son," he said.

Liuzzo, now 58, has never lived more than a mile from his mother. Like most Italian sons, Liuzzo and his mother always have been close, and now that she is elderly and infirm, he checks in with her by phone at least twice a day.

"He's very attached to me because I spoiled him," explained Guiseppa Liuzzo, 88, with a glint of triumph and pride.

A nation of `mamma's boys'

This ancient bond between mother and son is ingrained in the Italian character so deeply that it has acquired a name: mammismo. Sons afflicted with extreme cases of it are called mammoni.

A new study by Istat, Italy's leading compiler of sociological statistics, found this trait to be stronger than ever. A remarkable 70 percent of unmarried Italian men reach the age of 30 while still living with their parents, a percentage that has increased sharply over the past decade.

Even when they marry, they do not always move out, and if they do, they rarely stray far. The survey found that nearly 43 percent of all married children lived within a half-mile or so of the maternal nest.

Call your mother

Technology has only made it easier to cling to the apron strings.

Franco Romagnoli, an Italian writer now living in the United States, returned recently to his Roman roots. To gather material for a new book, he eavesdropped on the mobile-phone conversations of Italian men.

"Ninety percent of them are talking to their mothers," he said. " `Yes, Mamma. Of course, Mamma. Certainly, Mamma.' "

This, too, is born out by the Istat survey: 70 percent of Italian sons not living at home call their mothers every day.

Once, as a joke, Romagnoli took out his mobile phone on a busy street and bellowed: "Mamma, I'm 75 years old and you still insist on telling me what to do." The joke, he said, "was that it was so normal nobody turned around."

There are reasons for this extreme filial devotion. As Luigi Barzini observed in his 1964 classic "The Italians," no institution is more important than the family, and no member of the family more prized than its sons. "Nothing should be spared to produce them. Everything is done for them in Italy. They are the protagonists of Italian life. Their smallest wishes are satisfied," he wrote.

Sons are mothers' pride

Italian women define themselves first by producing sons, and then doting excessively upon them. This creates a model of manhood that to outsiders seems a bit paradoxical, mammismo vs. machismo.

Consider the recent TV images of young American soldiers heading off to Kosovo or the Persian Gulf: A manly hug and kiss for their wives or girlfriends, a brave smile for the TV cameras, emotions held firmly in check. In Italy, by contrast, the same situation produces forlorn choruses of "Mamma, Mamma, Mamma," as fierce-looking Italian soldiers wail unabashedly in the embrace of their weeping mothers.

One reason Italian sons (and daughters) live with their parents so long is that the state has failed to provide affordable housing for young people, said Ilvo Diamanti, director of the North-East Foundation, an Italian think tank.

While the norm in the United States is for sons and daughters to begin moving out of the family house about age 18, often to attend college, the University of Rome, with 150,000 students, does not have any dormitories. Students are expected to live at home.

Diamanti added that high unemployment and a tight job market are other factors that encourage Italians to remain in the parental household.

Wives play second fiddle

Romagnoli, the writer, said the special relationship between Italian mothers and their sons is a "symbiotic affair" that serves both parties.

"If the son doesn't want it to happen, it doesn't happen. But it's so comfortable and so convenient for the son that it's hard to resist," he said.

Whatever its cause, mammismo is a fact of life in contemporary Italy. "This is the reality. I have to deal with it every day," said Franco Censi, who runs a matrimonial service in Rome.

Most of his male clients are between age 35 and 45 and almost invariably live with their mothers. The mothers, he said, fall into two categories: those who jealously guard against any female rivals, and those who want their sons to find a wife but insist on choosing the wife themselves.

Censi said the No. 1 complaint among his female clients, particularly those from non-Italian backgrounds, is this extraordinary attachment of the Italian male to his mother. "I try to explain to them that they must first conquer the mother in order to gain the son," he said.