THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES
In the Romance countries the woman’s rights movement is hampered by Romance customs and by the Catholic religion. The number of women in these countries is in many cases smaller than the number of men. In general, the girls are married at an early age, almost always through the negotiations of the parents. The education of women is in some respects very deficient.
FRANCE
| Total population: | 38,466,924. |
| Women: | 19,346,369. |
| Men: | 18,922,651. |
| Federation of French Women’s Clubs. Woman’s Suffrage League. |
The European woman’s rights movement was born in France; it is a child of the Revolution of 1789. When a whole country enjoys freedom, equality, and fraternity, woman can no longer remain in bondage. The Declaration of the Rights of Man apply to Woman also. The European woman’s rights movement is based on purely logical principles; not, as in the United States, on the practical exercise of woman’s right to vote. This purely theoretical origin is not denied by the advocates of the woman’s rights movement in France. It ought to be mentioned that the principles of the woman’s rights movement were brought from France to England by Mary Wollstonecraft, and were stated in her pamphlet, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. But enthusiastic Mary Wollstonecraft did not form a school in England, and the organized English woman’s rights movement did not cast its lot with this revolutionist. What Mary Wollstonecraft did for England, Olympe de Gouges did for France in 1789; at that time she dedicated to the Queen her little book, The Declaration of the Rights of Women (La declaration des droits des femmes). It happened that The Declaration of the Rights of Man (La declaration des droits de l’homme) of 1789 referred only to the men. The National Assembly recognized only male voters, and refused the petition of October 28, 1789, in which a number of Parisian women demanded universal suffrage in the election of national representatives. Nothing is more peculiar than the attitude of the men advocates of liberty toward the women advocates of liberty. At that time woman’s struggle for liberty had representatives in all social groups. In the aristocratic circles there was Madame de Stael, who as a republican (her father was Swiss) never doubted the equality of the sexes; but by her actions showed her belief in woman’s right to secure the highest culture and to have political influence. Madame de Stael’s social position and her wealth enabled her to spread these views of woman’s rights; she was never dependent on the men advocates of freedom. Madame Roland was typical of the educated republican bourgeoisie. She participated in the revolutionary drama and was a “political woman.” On the basis of historical documents it can be asserted that the men advocates of freedom have not forgiven her.
The intelligent people of the lower classes are represented by Olympe de Gouges and Théroīgne de Mericourt. Both played a political rôle; both were woman’s rights advocates; of both it was said that they had forgotten the virtues of their sex,—modesty and submissiveness. The men of freedom still thought that the home offered their wives all the freedom they needed. The populace finally made demonstrations through woman’s clubs. These clubs were closed in 1793 by the Committee of Public Safety because the clubs disturbed “public peace.” The public peace of 1793! What an idyl! In short, the régime of liberty, equality, and fraternity regarded woman as unfree, unequal, and treated her very unfraternally. What harmony between theory and practice! In fact, the Revolution even withdrew rights that the women formerly possessed. For example, the old régime gave a noblewoman, as a landowner, all the rights of a feudal lord. She levied troops, raised taxes, and administered justice. During the old régime in France there were women peers; women were now and then active in diplomacy. The abbesses exercised the same feudal power as the abbots; they had unlimited power over their convents. The women owners of large feudal lands met with the provincial estates,—for instance, Madame de Sévigné in the Estates General of Brittany, where there was autonomy in the provincial administration. In the gilds the women masters exercised their professional right as voters. All of these rights ended with the old régime; beside the politically free man stood the politically unfree woman. Napoleon confirmed this lack of freedom in the Civil and Criminal Codes. Napoleon’s attitude toward all women (excepting his mother, Madame Mère) was such as we still find among the men in Southern Italy, in Spain, and in the Orient. His sisters and Josephine Beauharnais, the creole, could not give him a more just opinion of women. His fierce hatred for Madame de Stael indicates his attitude toward the woman’s rights representatives. The great Napoleon did not like intellectual women.
The Code Napoleon places the wife completely under the guardianship of the husband. Without him she can undertake no legal transaction. The property law requires joint property holding, excepting real estate (but most of the women are neither landowners nor owners of houses). The married woman has had independent control of her earnings and savings only since the enactment of the law of July 13, 1907. Only the husband has legal authority over the children. Such a legal status of woman is found in other codes. But the following provisions are peculiar to the Code Napoleon: If a husband kills his wife for committing adultery, the murder is “excusable.” An illicit mother cannot file a paternity suit. In practice, however, the courts in a roundabout way give the illicit mother an opportunity to file an action for damages.
No other code, above all no other Germanic or Slavic code,[81] has been disgraced by such paragraphs. In the first of the designated paragraphs we hear the Corsican, a cousin of the Moor of Venice; in the second we hear the military emperor, and general of an unbridled, undisciplined troop of soldiers. No one will be astonished to learn that this same lawgiver in 1801 supplemented the Code with a despotic state regulation of prostitution. What became of the woman’s rights movement during this arbitrary military régime? Full of fear and anxiety, the woman’s rights advocates concealed their views. The Restoration was scarcely a better time for advocating woman’s rights. The philosopher of the epoch, de Bonald, spoke very pompously against the equality of the sexes, “Man and woman are not and never will be equal.” It was not until the July Revolution of 1830 and the February Revolution of 1848 that the question of woman’s rights could gain a favorable hearing. The Saint Simonians, the Fourierists, and George Sand preached the rights of man and the rights of woman. During the February Revolution the women were found, just as in 1789, in the front ranks of the Socialists. The French woman’s rights movement is closely connected with both political movements. Every time a sacrifice of Republicans and Democrats was demanded, women were among the banished and deported: Jeanne Deroin in 1848, Louise Michel, in 1851 and 1871.
Marie Deraismes, belonging to the wealthy Parisian middle class, appeared in the sixties as a public speaker. She was a woman’s rights advocate. However, in a still greater degree she was a tribune of the people, a republican and a politician. Marie Deraismes and her excellent political adherent, Léon Richer, were the founders of the organized French woman’s rights movement. As early as 1876 they organized the “Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of Woman and for Demanding Woman’s Rights”; in 1878 they called the first French woman’s rights congress.