The Law: Marry Your Rapist

The law said she had to marry her rapist or be dishonored forever. She was 17 years old. She said no—and changed Italy forever.
This is the story of Franca Viola, and it happened not in ancient times, but in 1965—the year the Beatles released “Yesterday,” the year America sent troops to Vietnam. In modern Italy, just sixty years ago, there was a law that said if a man raped a woman, he could escape all punishment by marrying her.
It was called “matrimonio riparatore”—rehabilitating marriage. The idea was that marriage would “restore” the woman’s honor, which had been destroyed by the rape.
Her honor. Not his crime.
Article 544 of the Italian Penal Code made it official: marry your rapist, and he walks free. Refuse, and live forever as a damaged, unmarriageable outcast. That was the choice.
Franca Viola lived in Alcamo, Sicily, where honor codes ran deep and mafia influence was strong. She had briefly been engaged to Filippo Melodia, a man with organized crime connections, but she’d broken it off. Melodia didn’t accept rejection.
On December 26, 1965—the day after Christmas—Melodia and a group of armed men stormed the Viola family home. They beat Franca’s mother. They kidnapped Franca and her eight-year-old brother Mariano, who fought desperately to protect his sister.
Mariano was released after a short time. Franca was not.
For eight days, she was held captive. Raped. Terrorized. And constantly pressured to agree to marry her attacker—because that would make everything “right.” That would erase the crime. That would restore her honor.
When she was finally released, everyone expected Franca to do what women always did in Sicily: accept the marriage proposal, salvage what was left of her reputation, and move on with her life.
The community expected it. Society expected it. Even some in her own family expected it.
Franca Viola said no.
With her father Bernardo’s unwavering support, she refused to marry Filippo Melodia. Instead, she did something unprecedented in Italian history: she pressed charges. She took her rapist to court.
The backlash was immediate and brutal.
Her family was shunned by their community. Their fields were set on fire. The Viola name became synonymous with dishonor. In a culture where a woman’s virginity defined her value and a rape victim was considered “ruined goods,” Franca’s refusal to accept the “solution” was seen as shameful—not brave.
But she didn’t back down.
The trial began in 1966 and became a national sensation. For the first time, Italians across the country had to confront the horror of a law that protected rapists and punished victims. Newspapers covered every detail. The nation divided between those who supported Franca’s courage and those who condemned her for “shaming” herself and her family by refusing to hide the crime through marriage.
And then, something extraordinary happened.
Filippo Melodia was convicted and sentenced to eleven years in prison. (It was later reduced to ten, but the conviction stood.)
Franca Viola became the first woman in Italian history to publicly refuse “rehabilitating marriage” and successfully prosecute her rapist.
The cultural earthquake that followed was massive.
Italy’s President Giuseppe Saragat received her—a formal acknowledgment from the head of state that she had done something important. Then Pope Paul VI—the Pope himself—met with Franca. In a country where the Catholic Church’s opinion carried immense weight, this was a quiet but powerful signal: the old ways were ending.
In 1968, Franca married Giuseppe Ruisi, her childhood friend who loved her without prejudice, who saw her as a whole person rather than a “dishonored” woman. Their marriage was a statement: victims of violence deserved love, respect, and normal lives. She wasn’t damaged goods. She was a woman who had survived something terrible and deserved happiness.
But the law didn’t change immediately.
Article 544 remained on the books. Rapists could still escape justice by marrying their victims—at least on paper.
It took fifteen more years. Fifteen years of activism, of cultural shifts, of other women finding courage in Franca’s example, of a younger generation demanding better. Finally, in 1981, the Italian Parliament abolished the “rehabilitating marriage” law.
Rapists could no longer escape justice by marrying their victims.
Franca Viola, a 17-year-old girl from Sicily who simply said “no,” had helped change the law of an entire nation.
Today, Franca lives quietly with Giuseppe, their children, and grandchildren in Sicily. She rarely gives interviews. She was never interested in being a symbol or a celebrity—she just wanted justice for what happened to her.
But history made her a symbol anyway.
Because sometimes one person’s refusal to accept injustice can crack open an entire system. Sometimes a teenage girl’s courage can force a modern nation to confront laws built on ancient shame, patriarchal control, and the idea that women’s bodies belong to anyone but themselves.
Franca Viola proved that a woman’s honor isn’t defined by what’s done to her—it’s defined by how she responds.
She was 17 years old. The law, her community, tradition, the mafia, and fear all told her to submit.
She said no.
And Italy changed forever.