THE WORLD OF "LA MISERIA"
223
woman
living in a city slum, where material conditions and crowding
are equally bad, does one fully realize that it is the woman who has
for centuries held the southern family and society together. This is
the more remarkable if we keep in mind that the peasant society of
lOuthern Italy is considerably less "natural" than our "decadent," pro–
gressive society; as we have seen, of the "natural" drives of man only
one
has
been developed in the peasant world, taking the place of all
the others whose development has been inhibited. As a result we have
a world full of complexes that explode in acts of exasperation, of which
the violation of daughters and sisters is probably the most frequent.
A consequence of the effort of the woman to defend her dignity
is
a peculiar sense of solitude which peIVades the whole of southern
mety. Never alone-not even when she has to satisfy a natural need–
the woman of these regions is the loneliest being imaginable. This lone–
&ness
extends by reflection into the realm of the male. When reference
is
made to the philosophical sense of the Calabrian or Lucanian it is
probably to this sense of loneliness which, in the man, expresses itself
in
contemplation. At times this sense may erupt in the grandiose phil–
oeophical constructions of a Campanella or in the prophecies of a
Joachim
of Fiore; more often, it will stay submerged in the hardly
amscious play of ideas in the mind of a peasant walking toward the
fields.
Even the contempt for manual labor conspicuous in all strata of
IOUthern society, with the exception perhaps of the lowest classes, seems
to
be
as much an element satisfying certain needs of the social situation
• a consequence of Spanish influence. In a society tortured for cen–
turies
by an unceasing tension between an almost pathological sense of
iDsecurity and a commanding sense of dignity, we can expect, next to .
the
acceptance of one's position in the cosmic scheme, a series of strong
Iltempts to find a measure of dignity by self-distinction. In the world
of
"la miseria,"
possession in itself is an insufficient sign of distinction,
particularly
if
we keep in mind that the use of wealth, the idea of in–
ftltment by the individual is largely unknown in southern Italy; exemp–
tion
from lahor then becomes the only true criterion of distinction: he
who
is
at the lowest level of the economic and social scale has to work
with
his
hands; he who belongs to the "better classes" gives proof of it
by
disdaining manual labor. The bitterest antagonism in southern so–
ciety
exists between two groups which do manual labor, the peasants
ad
artisans; the artisans therefore welcome every occasion to show off
their
difference from the "serfs of the soil." For example, it is not
difficult
to
find places where the artisans vote Communist
en bloc
if
