Another characteristic of the German woman’s rights movement is its extensive and thorough organization. The smallest cities are to-day visited by women speakers. Our “unity of spirit,”—praised so frequently, and now and then ridiculed,—is our chief power in the midst of specially difficult conditions in which we must work. With tenacity and patience we have slowly overcome unusual difficulties,—to the present without any help worth mentioning from the men.

In the Civil Code of 1900 the most important demands of the women were not given just consideration. To be sure, woman is legally competent, but the property laws make joint property holding legal (wives control their earnings and savings), and the mother has no parental authority. Relative to the impending revision of the criminal law, the women made their demands as early as 1908 in a general meeting of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, when a three days’ discussion took place. Since 1897 the women have progressed considerably in their knowledge of law. The German women strongly advocate the establishment of juvenile courts such as the United States are now introducing. The Federation also demands that women be permitted to act as magistrates, jurors, lawyers, and judges.

In the struggle against official regulation of prostitution the women were supported in the Prussian Landtag by Deputy Münsterberg, of Dantzig. Prussia established a more humane regulation of prostitution, but as yet has not appointed the extraparliamentary commission for the study of the control of prostitution, a measure that was demanded by the women. The most significant recent event is the admission of women to political organizations and meetings by the Imperial Law of May 15, 1908. Thereby the German women were admitted to political life. The Woman’s Suffrage Society—founded in 1902, and in 1904 converted into a League—was able previous to 1908 to expand only in the South German states (excluding Bavaria). By this Imperial Law the northern states of the Empire were opened, and a National Woman’s Suffrage Society was formed in Prussia, in Bavaria, and in Mecklenburg. As early as 1906, after the dissolution of the Reichstag, the women took an active part in the campaign, a right granted them by the Vereinsrecht (Law of Association). In Prussia, Saxony, and Oldenburg the women worked for universal suffrage for women in Landtag elections. Since 1908 the political woman’s rights movement has been of first importance in Germany. As the women taxpayers in a number of states can exercise municipal suffrage by proxy, and the women owners of large estates in Saxony and Prussia can exercise the suffrage in elections for the Diet of the Circle (Kreistag) by proxy, an effort is being made to attract these women to the cause of woman’s suffrage.

In 1908 the Protestant women of the Imperial Provinces (Alsace and Lorraine) were granted the right to vote in church elections, a right that had been granted to the women of the German congregations in Paris as early as 1907[71].

LUXEMBURG

Total population:246,455.
Women:120,235.
Men:126,220.
No federation of women’s clubs.
No woman’s suffrage league.

The woman’s rights movement in Luxemburg originated in December, 1905, with the organization of the “Society for Women’s Interests” (Verein für Fraueninteressen), which has worked admirably. The society has 300 members, and is in good financial condition. Throughout the country it is now carrying on successful propaganda in the interest of higher education for girls and in the interest of women in the industries. In Luxemburg, after girls have graduated from a convent, they have no further educational facilities. The society has established a department for legal protection, and an employment agency; it has published an inquiry into the living conditions in the capital.

In the capital city there is a woman member of the poor-law commission; ten women are guardians of the poor; one woman is a school commissioner; and there is a woman inspector of the municipal hospital. The society is well supported by the liberal elements of the government and the public. Its chief object must be the establishment of a secular school that will prepare women for entrance to the universities.

GERMAN AUSTRIA