To study mafia marriages, first, you need to find the mafiosi. See Part 1 of this series. To study the marriages of Mafia members requires several steps. First, there is the identification of members of a secret, criminal organization. A few, like members of Giuseppe Morello’s family, and the bosses of Corleone, have been written... Continue Reading →
A family business
Mafia leadership for the past hundred years in Corleone have all been related to one another, through blood and marriage. Cattle theft in Sicily, before the twentieth century, was like car theft today, in that it was a crime that required a village. A thief who takes a car needs a network of criminals to... Continue Reading →
Mamma Mafia and the Little Brothers
"Mafia" is a feminine term that means beautiful and proud. Paradoxically, women are both essential to and excluded from the criminal organization. At the turn of the twentieth century, the mafia in Corleone was led by members of a new agrarian bourgeoisie (“nuova borghesia agraria”) of estate managers for absentee landlords. Author and labor organizer Dino Paternostro... Continue Reading →