Not only the antiquated marriage laws are inconsistent with the national political rights of women; in the municipal election laws, too, woman is treated unjustly. Married women do not exercise the right of suffrage, and widows and unmarried women possess the passive suffrage only in the election of poor-law administrators and school boards. Two woman’s suffrage organizations—Unionen and Finsk Kvinnoforening—have existed since 1906; they have no party affiliations. Two new woman’s suffrage societies—Swenska Kinnoforbundet and Naitlütto (Young-Finnish)—are party organizations.
The bill concerning the abolition of the official regulation of prostitution has meanwhile become law, replacing the former unsatisfactory, and for Finland, exceptional law. The law corresponding to the English Vagrancy Act (supplement to paragraph 45 of the Finnish Civil Code) provides that “whoever accosts a woman in public places for immoral purposes shall pay a fine of $50.”
On October 31, 1907, the manufacture, importation, sale, or storing of alcoholic liquors in any form whatever was prohibited by law. In recent years the Finnish woman temperance lecturer, Trigg Helenius, has carried on a successful international propaganda.
External and internal difficulties have to the present made impossible the formation of Finnish women’s clubs and a federation of the women voters.
NORWAY
| Total population: | 2,240,860. |
| Women: | 1,155,169. |
| Men: | 1,085,691. |
| League of Norwegian Women’s Clubs. Woman’s Suffrage Association. |
In recent years the Norwegian woman’s rights movement has made marked progress. Just as in the other Scandinavian countries, women were freed as early as the middle of the nineteenth century from the most burdensome legal restrictions by a liberal majority in Parliament. In 1854 the daughters were given the same right of inheritance as the sons, and male guardianship for unmarried women was abolished. However, the real woman’s rights movement, like that of Sweden and Finland, began in the eighties of the last century. Aasta Hansteen, Clara Collett, Björnson, and Ibsen had prepared public opinion for the emancipation of women. Like Frederika Bremer, Aasta Hansteen had emigrated to America owing to the prejudices of her countrymen; and, again like Frederika Bremer, she returned to her native land and could rejoice over the progress of the movement which she had instigated. In 1884 the Norwegian Woman’s League was founded. It has since 1886 published a semimonthly woman’s suffrage magazine, Nylaende. In 1887 the Norwegian woman’s rights movement won the same victory that Mrs. Butler had won in England in 1886: the official regulation of prostitution was abolished (neither in Sweden nor in Denmark has a similar reform been secured thus far). As early as 1882 several university faculties had admitted women, and in 1884 women were given the legal right to secure an academic training, and they were declared eligible to receive all scholarships and all academic degrees. In 1904 a law was enacted admitting women to a number of public offices. Paragraph 12 of the Constitution excludes them from the office of minister in the Cabinet; they are excluded from consulships on international grounds, from military offices by the nature of the offices, and from the theological field through the backwardness of the Norwegian clergy. But they were admitted to the teaching and legal professions, and to some of the administrative departments of the government. The law made no discrimination between married and unmarried women. It is believed that the women can decide best for themselves whether or not they can combine the work of an administrative office with their domestic duties.
Hitherto the teaching profession had presented difficulties for women. Fewer women than men were appointed; the women were given the subordinate positions and paid lower salaries. The women had energetically protested against these conditions since the passing of the law of 1904; in 1908 they succeeded in having the magistrate of Christiania raise the initial salary of women teachers in the elementary schools from 900 crowns ($241) to 1100 crowns ($295), and the maximum salary from 1500 crowns ($402) to 1700 crowns ($455). In Christiania the women also demanded that women teachers be given the position of head master; there were many women in the profession,—2900 in the elementary schools, and 736 in the secondary schools.
The women shop assistants’ trade-union in an open meeting in Christiania has demanded equal pay for equal work.