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Introduction When Dante wanted to describe the lowest reaches of hell in his epic poem Inferno, he turned to sins of betrayal. For Dante there was no worse sin than to betray an intimate relation. The jovial friar Alberigo of Faenza had two of his kinsmen murdered during a banquet. It was said that the sign made by the friar to the assassins was “Bring on the fruit”. Dante tells that for this act of betrayal the friar received payment, date for fig (that is, a more expensive fruit in place of the cheaper figs, or punishment harsher than the crime), in the ninth circle of hell. Branca d’Oria, meanwhile, killed his father-in-law while he was a guest in Branca’s house. His fate, too, was to be encased in a frozen crust of despair. Amongst all the desperate souls present in hell, these souls were assigned to the very last station, encountered as Dante concluded his tour of that forlorn place. There is no doubt that sins committed within the family are hard to bear. What is there to say when faced by domestic abuse and adultery, or even just quarrels and unruly children? It seems barely possible for brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, to live at peace with each other over any extended period of time. The idea that a family might be united can seem remote indeed, the vision
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