Pity Italy’s (male and female) Casanovas writes Barbie Latza Nadeau. The times are changing:

• According to one survey Italians are the most unfaithful people in the world.
• Yet Italian austerity measures are making it increasingly difficult for Italians to have affairs.
• In the past wives and children would leave for the summers while husbands stayed at home ostensibly to ‘work’ allowing for a summer season of love.
• Now however women are working more in an attempt to repair family finances and so stay at work – and in their homes – for the summer.
• Government crackdowns on tax evasion make it harder to hide a weekend romantic getaway as a business expense.
• The reinstatement of the tax on second homes also makes it difficult to hold onto a love-nest.
• It’s not just the austerity – in an era of social media it’s harder to keep affairs secret anyway.
• Yet while it might be harder to hide affairs, being caught might not mean the end of a marriage. After all, who can afford to be single?

Read more about the changing ambience of Italy’s cafés, how Italians feel about this, and more over here.

Source: The Daily Beast