The following features characterize the modern French woman’s rights movement: It is largely restricted to Paris; in the provinces there are only weak and isolated beginnings; even the Parisian woman’s rights organizations are not numerous, the greatest having 400 members. Thanks to the republican and socialist movements, which for thirty years have controlled France, the woman’s rights movement is for political reasons supported by the men to a degree not noticeable in any other country. The republican majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the republican press, and republican literature effectively promote the woman’s rights movement. The Federation of French Women’s Clubs, founded in 1901, and reputed to have 73,000 members, is at present promoting the movement by the systematic organization of provincial divisions. Less kindly disposed—sometimes indifferent and hostile—are the Church, the Catholic circles, the nobility, society, and the “liberal” capitalistic bourgeoisie. A sharp division between the woman’s rights movements of the middle class and the movement of the Socialists, such as exists, for example, in Germany, does not exist in France. A large part of the bourgeoisie (not the great capitalists) are socialistically inclined. On the basis of principle the Republicans and Socialists cannot deny the justice of the woman’s rights movement. Hence everything now depends on the opportuneness of the demands of the women.
The French woman has still much to demand. However enlightened, however advanced the Frenchman may regard himself, he has not yet reached the point where he will favor woman’s suffrage; what the National Assembly denied in 1789, the Republic of 1870 has also withheld. Nevertheless conditions have improved, in so far as measures in favor of woman’s suffrage and the reform of the civil rights of woman have since 1848 been repeatedly introduced and supported by petitions.[82] As for the civil rights of woman,—the principles of the Code Napoleon, the minority of the wife, and the husband’s authority over her are still unchanged. However, a few minor concessions have been made: To-day a woman can be a witness to a civil transaction, e.g. a marriage contract. A married woman can open a savings bank account in her maiden name; and, as in Belgium, her husband can make it impossible for her to withdraw the money! A wife’s earnings now belong to her. The severe law concerning adultery by the wife still exists, and affiliation cases are still prohibited. That is not exactly liberal.
Attempts to secure reforms of the civil law are being made by various women’s clubs, the Group of Women Students (Le groupe d’études féministes) (Madame Oddo Deflou), and by the committee on legal matters of the Federation of French Women’s Clubs (Madame d’Abbadie).
In both the legal and the political fields the French women have hitherto (in spite of the Republic) achieved very little. In educational matters, however, the republican government has decidedly favored the women. Here the wishes of the women harmonized with the republican hatred for the priests. What was done perhaps not for the women, was done to spite the Church.
Elementary education has been obligatory since 1882. In 1904-1905 there were 2,715,452 girls in the elementary schools, and 2,726,944 boys. State high schools, or lycées, for girls have existed since 1880. The programme of these schools is not that of the German Gymnasiums, but that of a German high school for girls (foreign languages, however, are elective). In the last two years (in which the ages of the girls are 16 to 18 years) the curriculum is that of a seminary for women teachers. In 1904-1905 these institutions were attended by 22,000 girls, as compared with 100,000 boys. The French woman’s rights movement has as yet not succeeded in establishing Gymnasiums for girls; at present, efforts are being made to introduce Gymnasium courses in the girls’ lycées. The admission of girls to the boys’ lycées, which has occurred in Germany and in Italy, has not even been suggested in France. To the present, the preparation of girls for the universities has been carried on privately.
The right to study in the universities has never been withheld from women. From the beginning, women could take the Abiturientenexamen (the university entrance examinations) with the young men before an examination commission. All departments are open to women. The number of women university students in France is 3609; the male students number 38,288. Women school teachers control the whole public school system for girls. In the French schools for girls most of the teachers are women; the superintendents are also women. The ecclesiastical educational system,—which still exists in secular guise,—is naturally, so far as the education of girls is concerned, entirely in the hands of women. The salaries of the secular women teachers in the first three classes of the elementary schools are equal to those of the men. The women teachers in the lycées (agrégées) are trained in the Seminary of Sèvres and in the universities. Their salaries are lower than those of the men. In 1907 the first woman teacher in the French higher institutions of learning was appointed,—Madame Curie, who holds the chair of physics in the Sorbonne, in Paris. In the provincial universities women are lecturers on modern languages. There are no women preachers in France. Dr. jur. Jeanne Chauvin was the first woman lawyer, being admitted to the bar in 1899. To-day women lawyers are practicing in Paris and in Toulouse.
In the government service there are women postal clerks, telegraph clerks, and telephone clerks,—with an average daily wage of 3 francs (60 cents). Only the subordinate positions are open to women. The same is true of the women employed in the railroad offices. Women have been admitted as clerks in some of the administrative departments of the government and in the public poor-law administration. Women are employed as inspectors of schools, as factory inspectors, and as poor-law administrators. There is a woman member of each of the following councils: the Superior Council of Education, the Superior Council of Labor, and the Superior Council of Public Assistance (Conseil Superior d’Education, Conseil Superior du Travail, Conseil Superior de l’Assistance Publique). The first woman court interpreter was appointed in the Parisian Court of Appeals in 1909.
The French woman is an excellent business woman. However, the women employed in commercial establishments, being organized as yet to a small extent, earn no more than women laborers,—70 to 80 francs ($14 to $16) a month. In general, greater demands are made of them in regard to personal appearance and dress. There is a law requiring that chairs be furnished during working hours. There is a consumers’ league in Paris which probably will effect reforms in the laboring conditions of women. The women in the industries, of whom there are about 900,000, have an average wage of 2 francs (50 cents) a day. Hardly 30,000 are organized into trade-unions; all women tobacco workers are organized. As elsewhere, the French ready-made clothing industry is the most wretched home industry. A part of the French middle-class women oppose legislation for the protection of women workers on the ground of “equality of rights for the sexes.”[83] This attitude has been occasioned by the contrast between the typographers and the women typesetters; the men being aided in the struggle by the prohibition of night work for women. It is easy to explain the rash and unjustifiable generalization made on the basis of this exceptional case. The women that made the generalization and oppose legislation for the protection of women laborers belong to the bourgeois class. There are about 1,500,000 women engaged in agriculture, the average wage being 1 franc 50 (about 37 cents). Many of these women earn 1 franc to 1 franc 20 (20 to 24 cents) a day. In Paris, women have been cab drivers and chauffeurs since 1907. In 1901 women formed 35 per cent of the population engaged in the professions and the industries (6,805,000 women; 12,911,000 men: total, 19,716,000).
There are three parties in the French woman’s rights movement. The Catholic (le féminisme chrétien), the moderate (predominantly Protestant), and the radical (almost entirely socialistic). The Catholic party works entirely independently; the two others often coöperate, and are represented in the National Council of Women (Conseil national des femmes), while the féminisme chrétien is not represented. The views of the Catholic party are as follows: “No one denies that man is stronger than woman. But this means merely a physical superiority. On the basis of this superiority man dare not despise woman and regard her as morally inferior to him. But from the Christian point of view God gave man authority over woman. This does not signify any intellectual superiority, but is simply a fact of hierarchy.”[84] The féminisme chrétien advocates: A thorough education for girls according to Catholic principles; a reform of the marriage law (the wife should control her earnings, separate property holding should be established); the same moral standard for both sexes (abolition of the official regulation of prostitution); the same penalty for adultery for both sexes (however, there should be no divorce); the authority of the mother (autorité maritale) should be maintained, for only in this way can peace prevail in the family. “A high-minded woman will never wish to rule. It is her wish to sacrifice herself, to admire, to lean on the arm of a strong man that protects her.”[85]
In the moderate group (President, Miss Sara Monod), these ideas have few advocates. Protestantism, which is strongly represented in this party, has a natural inclination toward the development of individuality. This party is more concerned with the woman that does not find the arm of the “strong man” to lean on, or who detected him leaning upon her. This party is entirely opposed to the husband’s authority over the wife and to the dogma of obligatory admiration and sacrifice. The leaders of the party are Madame Bonnevial, Madame Auclert, and others. During the five years’ leadership of Madame Marguerite Durand, the “Fronde” was the meeting place of the party.