further reforms until the final breakthrough came with the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. In Spain, the 1931 Constitution of the Second Spanish Republic for the first time recognised a right to divorce. The first law to regulate divorce was the Divorce Act of 1932, which passed the Republican Parliament despite the opposition of the Catholic Church and a coalition of the Agrarian Minority and Minority Basque-Navarre Catholic parties. The dictatorship of General Franco abolished the law. After the restoration of democracy, a new divorce law was passed in 1981, again over the opposition of the Catholic Church and part of the Christian Democrat party, then a part of the ruling Union of Democratic Center. During the first socialist government of Felipe González Márquez, the 1981 law was amended to expedite the process of separation and divorce of marriages, which was again opposed by the Church, which called it "express divorce". In Italy, the first divorce law was introduced on 1 December 1970, despite the opposition of the Christian Democrats, and entered into force on 18 December 1970. In the following years, the Christian Democrats, supported also by parties opposed to the law, promoted a recall referendum. In 1974, in a referendum, the majority of the population voted against a repeal of the divorce law. A feature of the 1970 divorce law was the long period of marital separation of five years required. This period was reduced to three in 1987 and to a year in 2015, in the case of judicial separation, and six months in the case of separation by mutual agreement. Ireland and Malta approved divorce at referendums in 1995 and 2011 respectively. Divorce rates increased markedly during the 20th century in developed countries, as social attitudes towards family and sex changed dramatically. Divorce has become commonplace in some countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom. Japan In the Edo Period (1603–1868), husbands could divorce their wives by writing letters of divorce. Frequently, their relatives or marriage arrangers kept these letters and tried to restore the marriages. Wives could not divorce their husbands. Some wives were able to gain sanctuary in certain Shinto "divorce temples". After a wife had spent three years in a temple, her husband was required to divorce her. In 19th century Japan, at least one in eight marriages ended in divorce. There are four types of