In 1912 a new civil code will come into force. Its composition has been influenced by the German Civil Code. The government, however, regarded the “Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs” as the representative of the women, and charged a member of the code commission to put himself into communication with the executive committee of the Federation and to express the wishes of the Federation at the deliberations of the committee. This is better than nothing, but still insufficient. When the civil code had been adopted, every male elector was given a copy; the women’s clubs secured copies only after prolonged effort.
The property laws in the new Swiss Civil Code provide for joint property holding,—not separation of property rights. However, even with joint property holding the wife’s earnings and savings belong to her (a provision which the German cantons opposed). On the other hand, affiliation cases are admissible (the French cantons opposed them). The wife has the full status of a legal person before the law and full civil ability, andshares parental authority with the father. French Switzerland (through the influence of the Code Napoleon) opposes the pecuniary responsibility of the illegal father toward the mother and child. Official regulation of prostitution has been abolished in all the cantons except Geneva; several years ago a measure to introduce it again was rejected by the people of the Canton Zurich by a vote of 40,000 to 18,000. Geneva is the headquarters of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution. In 1909 the abolition of the official regulation of prostitution was again demanded in the city council.
By a vote of the people the Canton Vaud accepted a measure prohibiting the manufacture, storage, and sale of absinthe.
Recently the Swiss women have presented a petition requesting that an illicit mother be granted the right to call herself “Frau” and use this designation (Mrs.)before her name. The benevolent purpose of this movement is self-evident. Through this measure the illicit mother is placed in a position enabling her openly to devote herself to the rearing of her child. With this purpose in view, not less than 10,000 women have signed a petition to the Swiss Federal Council, requesting that a law be enacted compelling registrars to use the title “Frau” (Mrs.) when requested to do so by the person concerned. Thirty-four women’s clubs have collectively declared in favor of this petition.
Women exercise the right of municipal suffrage only in those localities whose male population is absent at work during a large part of the year (as in Russia). Women can be elected as members of school boards and as poor-law administrators in the Canton Zurich; as members of school boards in the Canton Neuchâtel. The question of granting women the right to vote in church affairs has long been advocated in the Canton Geneva by the Reverend Thomas Müller, a member of the Consistory of the National Protestant Church, and by Herr Locher, Chief of the Department of Public Instruction of the Canton Zurich. In the Canton Geneva, where there is separation of church and state, agitation in favor of the reform is being carried on. The women in the Canton Vaud have exercised the right to vote in theÉglise libresince 1899, and in theÉglise nationalesince 1908.Since 1909, women have exercised the right to vote in theÉglise évangélique libreof Geneva. The woman’s suffrage movement was really started by the renowned Professor Hilty, of Berne, who declared himself (in the Swiss Year Book of 1897) infavorof woman’s suffrage. The first society concerning itself exclusively with woman’s suffrage originated in Geneva (Association pour le suffrage feminin). Later other organizations were formed in Lausanne, Chaux de Fonds, Neuenburg, and Olten. The Woman’s Reading Circle of Berne had, since 1906, demanded political rights for women, and the Zurich Society for the Reform of Education for Girls had worked in favor of woman’s suffrage. On May 12, 1908, these seven societies organized themselves into the National Woman’s Suffrage League, and in June affiliated with the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. The Report of the International Woman’s Suffrage Congress, Amsterdam, 1908, explains in a very lucid manner the political backwardness of the Swiss women: Switzerland regards itself as the model democracy; time has been required to make it clear that politically the women of this model state still have everything to achieve. The meeting of the Committee of the International Council of Women in Geneva (September, 1908) accomplished much for the movement.
The Swiss Woman’s Public Utility Association,which had refused to join the Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs because the Federation concerned itself with political affairs (the Public Utility Association wishing to restrict itself to public utilities only), was given this instructive answer by Professor Hilty: “Public utility and politics are not mutually exclusive; an educated woman that wishes to make a living without troubling herself about politics is incomprehensible to me. The women ought to take Carlyle’s words to heart: ‘We are not here to submit to everything, but also to oppose, carefully to watch, and to win.’”
GERMANY
In no European country has the woman’s rights movement been confronted with more unfavorable conditions; nowhere has it been more persistently opposed. In recent times the women of no other country have lived through conditions of war such as the German women underwent during the Thirty Years’ War and from 1807 to 1812. Such violence leaves a deep imprint on the character of a nation.
Moreover, it has been the fate of no other civilized nation to owe its political existence to a war triumphantly fought out in less than one generation. Every war, every accentuation and promotion of militarism is a weakening of the forces of civilization and of woman’s influence. “German masculinity is still so young,” I once heard somebody say.
A reinforcement of the woman’s rights movement by a large Liberal majority in the national assemblies, such as we find in England, France, and Italy, is not to be thought of in Germany. The theories of the rights of man and of citizens were never applied by German Liberalism to woman in a broad sense, and the Socialist party is not yet in the majority. The political training of the German man has in many respects not yet been extended to include the principles of the American Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man; his respect for individual liberty has not yet been developed as in England; therefore he is much harder to win over to the cause of “woman’s rights.”
Hence the struggle against the official regulation of prostitution has been left chiefly to the German women; whereas in England and in France the physicians, lawyers, and members of Parliament have been the chief supporters of abolition. I am reminded also of the inexpressibly long and difficult struggle that wewomen had to carry on in order to secure the admission of women to the universities; the establishment of high schools for girls; and the improvement of the opportunities given to women teachers. In no other country were women teachers for girls wronged to such an extent as in Germany. The results of the last industrial census (1907) give to the demands of the woman’s rights movement an invaluable support:Germany has nine and a half million married women, i.e.only one half of all adult women (over 18 years of age) are married. In Germany, too, marriage is not a lifelong “means of support” for woman, or a “means of support” for the whole number of women. Therefore the demands of woman for a complete professional and industrial training and freedom to choose her calling appear in the history of our time with a tremendous weight, a weight that the founders of the movement hardly anticipated.
The German woman’s rights movement originated during the troublous times immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848. The founders—Augusta Schmidt, Louise Otto-Peters, Henrietta Goldschmidt, Ottilie v. Steyber, Lina Morgenstern—were “forty-eighters”; they believed in the right of woman to an education, to work, and to choose her calling, and as a citizen to participate directly in public life. Only the first three of these demands are contained in the programme ofthe “German General Woman’s Club” (founded in 1865 by four of these women, natives of Leipzig, on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig). At that time woman’s right to vote was put aside as something utopian. The founders of the woman’s rights movement, however, from the very first included in their programme the question of women industrial laborers, and attacked the question in a practical way by organizing a society for the education of workingwomen. The energies of the middle-class women were at this time very naturally absorbed by their own affairs. They suffered want, material as well as intellectual. Therefore it was a matter of securing a livelihood for middle-class women no longer provided for at home. This was the first duty of a woman’s rights movement originating with the middle class.
Of special service in the field of education and the liberal professions[69]were the efforts of Augusta Schmidt, Henrietta Goldschmidt, Marie Loeper-Housselle, Helena Lang, Maria Lischnewska, and Mrs. Kettler. Kindergartens were established; also courses for the instruction of adult women, for women principals of high schools, for women in theGymnasiumsandRealgymnasiums. Moreover, the admission of women to the universities was secured; the General Associationof German Women Teachers was founded, also the Prussian Association of Women Public School Teachers, and high schools for girls. The Prussian law of 1908 for the reform of girls’ high schools (providing for the education of girls over 12 years,—RealgymnasiumsorGymnasiumsfor girls from 12 to 16 years, women’s colleges for women from 16 to 18 years) was enacted under pressure from the German woman’s rights movement. Both the state and city must now do more for the education of girls. The academically trained women teachers in the high schools are given consideration when the appointments of principals and teachers for the advanced classes are made. The women teachers have organized themselves and are demanding salaries equal to those of the men teachers. At the present time girls are admitted to the boys’ schools (Gymnasiums,Realgymnasiums, etc.) in Baden, Hessen, the Imperial Provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, Oldenburg, and Wurttemberg. The German Federation of Women’s Clubs and the convention of the delegates of the Rhenish cities and towns have made the same demands for Prussia.
The Prussian Association of Women Public School Teachers is demanding that women teachers be appointed as principals, and is resisting with all its power the threatened injustice to women in the adjustment of salaries. The universities in Baden andWurttemberg were the first to admit women; then followed the universities in Hessen, Bavaria, Saxony, the Imperial Provinces, and finally,—in 1908,—Prussia. The number of women enrolled in Berlin University is 400.
About 50 women doctors are practicing in Germany; as yet there are no women preachers, but there are 5 women lawyers, one of whom in 1908 pleaded the case of an indicted youth before the Altona juvenile court. Although there are only a few women lawyers in Germany, women are now permitted to act as counsel for the defendant, there being 60 such women counselors in Bavaria. Recently (1908) even Bavaria refused women admission to the civil service.
In the autumn there was appointed the first woman lecturer in a higher institution of learning,—this taking place in the Mannheim School of Commerce. Within the last five years many new callings have been opened to women: they are librarians (of municipal, club, and private libraries) and have organized themselves into the Association of Women Librarians; they are assistants in laboratories, clinics, and hospitals; they make scientific drawings, and some have specialized in microscopic drawing; during the season for the manufacture of beet sugar, women are employed as chemists in the sugar factories; there is a woman architect in Berlin, and a woman engineer inHamburg. Women factory inspectors have performed satisfactory service in all the states of the Empire. But the future field of work for the German women is the sociological field. State, municipal, and private aid is demanded by the prevailing destitution. At the present time women work in the sociological field without pay. In the future much of this work must be performed by theprofessionalsociological women workers. In about 100 cities women are guardians of the poor. There are 103 women superintendents of orphan asylums; women are sought by the authorities as guardians. Women’s coöperation as members of school committees and deputations promotes the organized woman’s rights movement. The first woman inspector of dwellings has been appointed in Hessen. Nurses are demanding that state examinations be made requisite for those wishing to become nurses; some cities of Germany have appointed women as nurses for infant children. In Hessen and Ostmark [the eastern part of Prussia], women are district administrators. There is an especially great demand for women to care for dependent children and to work in the juvenile courts; this will lead to the appointment of paid probation officers. In southern Germany, women police matrons are employed; in Prussia there are women doctors employed in the police courts. There are also women schoolphysicians. Since 1908, trained women have entered the midwives’ profession.
When the German General Woman’s Club was formed in 1865, there was no German Empire; Berlin had not yet become the capital of the Empire. But since Berlin has become the seat of the Imperial Parliament, Berlin very naturally has become the center of the woman’s rights movement. This occurred through the establishment of the magazineFrauenwohl[Woman’s Welfare] in 1888, by Mrs. Cauer. In this manner the younger and more radical woman’s rights movement was begun. The women that organized the movement had interested themselves in the educational field. The radicals now entered the sociological and political fields. Women making radical demands allied themselves with Mrs. Cauer; they befriended her, and coöperated with her. This is an undisputed fact, though some of these women later left Mrs. Cauer and allied themselves with either the “Conservatives” or the “Socialists.”
In the organization of trade-unions for women not exclusively of the middle class, Minna Cauer led the way. In 1889, with the aid of Mr. Julius Meyer and Mr. Silberstein, she organized the “Commercial and Industrial Benevolent Society for Women Employees.” The society has now 24,000 members. State insurance for private employees is now (1909) a question of the day.
Jeannette Schwerin founded the information bureau of the Ethical Culture Society, which furnished girls and women assistants for social work. At the same time Jeannette Schwerin demanded that women be permitted to act as poor-law guardians. The agitation in public meetings and legislative assemblies against the Civil Code was instituted by Dr. Anita Augsburg and Mrs. Stritt.
The opposition to state regulation of prostitution was begun by the “radical” Hanna Bieber-Böhm and Anna Pappritz. Lily v. Gikycki was the first to speak publicly concerning the civic duty of women. The Woman’s Suffrage Society was organized in 1901 by Mrs. Cauer, Dr. Augsburg, Miss Heymann, and Dr. Schirmacher.
In 1894 the radical section of the “German Federation of Women’s Clubs” proposed that women’s trade-unions be admitted to the Federation. This radical section had often given offense to the “Conservatives”—in the Federation, for instance—by the proposal of this measure; but the radicals in this way have stimulated the movement. As early as 1904 the Berlin Congress of the International Council of Women had shown that the Federation, being composed chiefly of conservative elements, should adopt in its programme all the demands of the radicals, including woman’s suffrage. The differences between the Radicalsand the Conservatives are differences of personality rather than of principles. The radicals move to the time ofallegro; the conservatives to the time ofandante. In all public movements there is usually the same antagonism; it occurred also in the English and the American woman’s rights movements.
In no other country (with the exception of Belgium and Hungary) is the schism between the woman’s rights movement of the middle class and the woman’s rights movement of the Socialists so marked as in Germany. At the International Woman’s Congress of 1896 (which was held through the influence of Mrs. Lina Morgenstern and Mrs. Cauer) two Social Democrats, Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin, declared that they never would coöperate with the middle-class women. This attitude of the Social Democrats is the result of historical circumstances. The law against the German Socialists has increased their antagonism to the middle class. Nevertheless, this harsh statement by Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin was unnecessary. It has just been stated that the founders of the German woman’s rights movement had included the demands of the workingwomen in their programme, and that the Radicals (by whom the congress of 1896 had been called, and who for years had been engaged in politics and in the organization of trade-unions) had in 1894 demanded the admission of women’s labor organizationsto the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Hence an alignment of the two movements would have been exceedingly fortunate. However, a part of the Socialists, laying stress on ultimate aims, regard “class hatred” as their chief means of agitation, and are therefore on principle opposed to any peaceful coöperation with the middle class. A part of the women Socialist leaders are devoting themselves to the organization of workingwomen,—a task that is as difficult in Germany as elsewhere. Almost everywhere in Germany women laborers are paid less than men laborers. The average daily wage is 2 marks (50 cents), but there are many workingwomen that receive less. In the ready-made clothing industry there are weekly wages of 6 to 9 marks ($1.50 to $2.25). At the last congress of home workers, held at Berlin, further evidence of starvation in the home industries was educed. But for these wages the German woman’s rights movement is not to be held responsible.
In the social-political field the woman’s rights advocates hold many advanced views. Almost without exception they are advocating legislation for the protection of the workingwomen; they have stimulated the organization of the “Home-workers’ Association” in Berlin; they urged the workingwomen to seek admission to the Hirsch-Duncker Trades Unions (the German national association of trade-unions); theyhave established a magazine for workingwomen, and have organized a league for the consideration of the interests of workingwomen. In 1907 Germany had 137,000 organized workingwomen and female domestic servants.[70]Most of these belong to the socialistic trade-unions. The maximum workday for women is fixed at ten hours. The protection of maternity is promoted by the state as well as by women’s clubs.
Peculiar to Germany is the denominational schism in the woman’s rights movement. The precedent for this was established by the “German Evangelical Woman’s League,” founded in 1899, with Paula Müller, of Hanover, as President. The organization of the League was due to the feeling that “it is a sin to witness with indifference how women that wish to know nothing of Biblical Christianity represent all the German women.” The organization opposes equality of rights between man and woman; but in 1908 it joined the Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1903 a “Catholic Woman’s League” was formed, but it has not joined the Federation. There has also been formed a “Society of Jewish Women.” We representatives of the interdenominational woman’s rights movement deplore this denominational disunion. These organizations are important because they make accessible groups of people that otherwise could not be reached by us.
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 PrussianLandtag 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 theVereinsrecht(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) byproxy, 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
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 educationalfacilities. 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
The Austrian woman’s rights movement is based primarily on economic conditions. More than 50 per cent of the women in Austria are engaged in non-domestic callings. This percentage is a strong argument against the theory that woman’s sphere is merely domestic. Unfortunately this non-domestic service of the Austrian women is seldom very remunerative.Austria itself is a country of low wages. This condition is due to a continuous influx of Slavic workers, to large agricultural provinces, to the tenacious survivals of feudalism, etc. Therefore women’s wages and salaries are lower than in western Europe, and low living expenses do not prevail everywhere (Vienna is one of the most expensive cities to live in). The “Women’s Industrial School Society,” founded in 1851, attempted to raise the industrial ability of the girls of the middle class. In accordance with the views of the time, needlework was taught. Free schools for the instruction of adults were established in Vienna. The economic misery following the war of 1866 led to the organization of the “Woman’s Industrial Society,” which enlarged woman’s sphere of activity as did the Lette-Society in Berlin. Since 1868 the woman’s rights movement has secured adherents from the best educated middle-class women,—namely, women teachers. In that year the Catholic women teachers organized a “Catholic Women Teachers’ Society.” In 1869 was organized the interdenominational “Austrian Women Teachers’ Society.” This society has performed excellent service. The women teachers, who since 1869 had been given positions in the public schools, were paid less than the men teachers having the same training and doing the same work. Therefore the women teachers presented themselves to the provincial legislatures, demanded an increasein salary, and, in spite of the opposition of the male teachers, secured the increase by the law of 1891. In 1876 a society devoted its efforts to the improvement of the girls’ high schools, which had been greatly neglected. In 1885 the women writers and the women artists organized, their male colleagues having refused to admit women to the existing professional societies. In 1888 the women music teachers likewise organized themselves. At the same time the question of higher education for women was agitated. In Vienna a “lyceum” class—the first of its kind—was opened to prepare girls for entrance to the universities (Abiturientenexamen). Admission to the boys’ high schools was refused to girls in Vienna, but was granted in the provinces (Troppau, and Mährisch-Schönberg). Girls were at all times admitted as outsiders (Extraneae) to the examinations held on leaving college (Abiturientenexamen). In this way many girls passed the “leaving” examination before they began their studies in Switzerland. Until 1896 the Austrian universities remained closed to women. The law faculties do not as yet admit women. The women’s clubs are striving to secure this reform. Those women that had studied medicine in Switzerland previous to 1896, and wished to practice in Austria, required special imperial permission, which was never withheld from them in their noble struggle.
In this way Dr. Kerschbaumer began her practiceas an oculist in Salzburg. However, the Countess Possanner, M.D., after passing the Swiss state examination, also took the Austrian examination. She is now practicing in Vienna.
As the Austrian doctors have active and passive suffrage in the election to the Board of Physicians (Ärztekammer)[72]Dr. Possanner also requested this right. Her request was refused by the magistrate in Vienna because,as a woman, she did not have the suffrage in municipal elections, and the suffrage for the Board of Physicians could be exercised only by those doctors that were municipal electors.[73]Thereupon Dr. Possanner appealed her case to the government, to the Minister of the Interior, and finally to the administrative court. The court decided in favor of the petition. It must be emphasized, however, that the Board of Physicians favored the request from the beginning.
Women preachers and women lawyers are as yet unknown in Austria. As in former times, the teaching profession is still the chief sphere of activity for the middle-class women of German Austria. According to the law of 1869 they can be appointed not only as teachers in the elementary schools for girls, but also asteachers of the lower classes in the boys’ schools. Their not being municipal voters has two results: if the municipality is seeking votes, it appoints men teachers that are “favorably disposed”; if the municipality is politically opposed to the male teachers, it appoints women teachers in preference. But to be the plaything of political whims is not a very worthy condition to be in. If women teachers marry, they need not withdraw from the service (except in the province of Styria). More than 10 per cent of the women teachers in the whole of Austria are married, more than 2 per cent are widows. The women comprise about one fourth of the total number of elementary school teachers, of whom there are 9000. Their annual salaries vary from 200 to 1600 guldens ($96.40 to $771.20). The ordinary salary of 200 guldens is so insufficient that many elementary school teachers actually starve. The competition of the nuns is feared by the whole body of secular school teachers. In Tyrol instruction in the elementary schools is still almost wholly in the hands of the religious orders. The sisters work for little pay; they have a community life and consume the resources of the dead hand.
Of the secondary schools for girls some are ecclesiastic, some are municipal, and some private. The lyceums give a very good education (mathematics is obligatory), but as yet there are no ordinary secondaryschools whose leaving examinations are equivalent to theAbiturientenexamenof theGymnasiums. The “Academic Woman’s Club” in Vienna is demanding this reform, and the Federation of Austrian Women’s Clubs is demanding the development of the municipal girls’ schools intoRealschulen. The state subsidizes various institutions. The girls’Gymnasiumswere privately founded. Dr. Cecilia Wendt, upon whom the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred by Vienna University, and who took the state examination for secondary school teachers in mathematics, physics, and German, was the first woman appointed as teacher in aGymnasium, being appointed in the ViennaGymnasiumfor girls. Since 1871, women have been appointed in the postal and telegraph service. Like most of the subordinate state officials, they receive poor pay, and dare not marry. The women telegraph operators in the central office in Vienna are paid 30 guldens ($14.46) a month. “The woman telegraph operator can lay no claims to the pleasures of existence.” “These girls starve spiritually as well as physically.”[74]During the past twenty-eight years salaries have not been increased. Every two years a two-week vacation is granted. Since 1876 there has existed a relief society for women postal and telegraph employees.
The woman stenographer, to-day so much sought after in business offices, was in 1842absolutely excludedfrom the courses in Gabelsberger stenography[75]by the Ministry of Public Instruction. In the courts of chancery (Advokatenkanzleien) women stenographers are paid 20 to 30 guldens ($9.64 to $14.46) a month. They are given the same pay in the stores and offices where they are expected to use typewriters. They are regarded as subordinates, though frequently they are thorough specialists and masters of languages. In the governmental service the women subordinates that work by the day (1.50 guldens,—73 cents) have no hope for advancement or pension. The first woman chief of a government office has been appointed to the sanitary department of the Ministry of the Labor Department, in which there is also a woman librarian.
It is not easy to imagine the deplorable condition of workingwomen when women public school teachers and women office clerks are expected to live on a monthly salary of $9.64 to $14.46. The Vienna inquiry into the condition of workingwomen in 1896 disclosed frightfully miserable conditions among workingwomen. Since then, especially through the efforts of the Socialists, the conditions have been somewhat improved.
In Vienna, efforts to organize women into trade-unions have been made,—especially among thebookbinders, hat makers, and tailors. Outside Vienna, organization has been effected chiefly among the women textile workers in Silesia, as well as among the women employees of the state tobacco factories. The most thorough organization of women laborers is found in northern and western Bohemia among the glassworkers and bead makers. In Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Carinthia the organization of women is found only in isolated cases. Everywhere the organization of women is made difficult by domestic misery, which consumes the energy, time, and interest of the women. The organized Social-Democratic women laborers of German Austria have a permanent representation in the “Women’s Imperial Committee.” Of the 50,000 women organized in trade-unions, 5000 belong to the Social-Democratic party. TheMagazine for Workingwomen(Arbeiterinnenzeitung) has 13,400 subscribers. Women industrial inspectors have proved themselves efficient.
It is to be expected as a result of the wretched economic conditions of the workingwomen that prostitution with its incidental earnings should be widespread in German Austria. Vienna is the refuge of those seeking work and seclusion (Verschwiegenheit). The number of illicit births in Vienna is, as in Paris, one third of the total number of births. For these and other reasons the “General Woman’s Club of Austria” (Allgemeine Österreiche Frauenverein), founded in 1893under the leadership of Miss Augusta Fickert, has frequently concerned itself with the question of prostitution, of woman’s wages, and of the official regulation of prostitution,—always being opposed to the last. The International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution (internationale abolinistische Föderation) was, however, not represented in German Austria before 1903; the Austrian branch of this organization being established in 1907 in Vienna.
The middle-class women are doing much as leaders of the charitable, industrial, educational, and woman’s suffrage societies to raise the status of woman in Austria. The most prominent members of these societies are: Augusta Fickert, Marianne Hainisch, Mrs. v. Sprung, Miss Herzfelder, v. Wolfring, Mrs. v. Listrow, Rosa Maireder, Maria Lang (editor of the excellentDokumente der Frauen, which, unfortunately, were discontinued in 1902), Mrs. Schwietland, Elsie Federn (the superintendent of the settlement in the laborers’ district in North Vienna), Mrs. Jella Hertzka, (Mrs.) Dr. Goldmann, superintendent of the Cottage Lyceum, and others.
These women frequently coöperate with the leaders of the Socialistic woman’s rights movement, Mrs. Schlesinger, Mrs. Popp, and others. The disunion of the two forces of the movement is much less marked in Austria than in Germany, the circumstances much moreresembling those in Italy. In these lands it is expected that the woman’s rights movement will profit greatly through the growth of Socialism. This is explained by the fact that the Austrian Liberals are not equal to the assaults of the Conservatives. Universal equal suffrage, which does not as yet exist in Austria, has its most enthusiastic advocates among the Socialists. With the Austrian Socialists, universal suffrage means woman’s suffrage also.[76]
During the Liberal era two rights were granted to the Austrian women: since 1849 the women taxpayers vote by proxy in municipal elections, and since 1861 for the local legislatures (Provinciallandtagen).[77]In Lower Austria theLandtagin 1888 deprived them of this right, and in 1889 an attempt was made to deprive them of their municipal suffrage. But the women concerned successfully petitioned that they be left in possession of their active municipal suffrage. Since 1873 the Austrian women owners of large estates vote also for the Imperial Parliament through proxy. The Austrian women, supported by the Socialist deputies, Pernerstorfer, Kronawetter, Adler, and others, have on several occasions demanded the passive suffrage in the election of school boards and poor-law guardians; theyhave also demanded a reform of the law of organization, so that women can be admitted to political organizations. To the present these efforts have been fruitless. When universal suffrage was granted in 1906 (creating the fifth class of voters), the women were disregarded. In the previous year a Woman’s Suffrage Committee had been established with headquarters in Vienna. It is endeavoring especially to secure the repeal of paragraph 30 of the law regulating organizations and public meetings. This law (like that of Prussia and Bavaria previous to 1908) excludes women from political organization, thus making the forming of a woman’s suffrage society impossible. For this reason Austria cannot join the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance.
During the consideration of the new municipal election laws in Troppau (Austrian Silesia), it was proposed to withdraw the right of suffrage from the women taxpayers. They resisted the proposal energetically. At present the matter is before the supreme court. In Voralberg the unmarried women taxpayers were also given the right to vote in elections of theLandtag. The legal status of the Austrian woman is similar to that of the French woman: the wife is under the guardianship of her husband; the property law provides for the amalgamation of property (not joint property holding, as in France). But the wife does not have control of her earnings and savings, as in Germany under theCivil Code. The father alone has legal authority over the children.
Here the names of two women must be mentioned: Bertha v. Suttner, one of the founders of the peace movement, and Marie v. Ebner-Eschenbach, the greatest living woman writer in the German language. Both are Austrians; and their country may well be proud of them.
In Austria the authorities are more favorably disposed toward the woman’s rights movement than in Germany, for example.
HUNGARY[78]
At first the Hungarian woman’s rights movement was restricted to the advancement of girls’ education. The attainment of national independence gave the women greater ambition; since 1867 they have striven for the establishment of higher institutions of learning for girls. In 1868 Mrs. v. Veres with twenty-two other women founded the “Society for the Advancement of Girls’Education.” In 1869, the first class in a high school for girls was formed in Budapest. An esteemed scholar, P. Gyulai, undertook the superintendence of the institution. Similar schools were founded in the provinces. In 1876 the Budapest model school was completed; in 1878 it was turned over to a woman superintendent, Mrs. v. Janisch. A seminary for women teachers was established, a special building being erected for the purpose. Then the admission of women to the university was agitated. A special committee for this purpose was formed with Dr. Coloman v. Csicky as chairman. In the meantime the “Society” gave domestic economy courses and courses of instruction to adults (in its girls’ high school). The Minister of Public Instruction, v. Wlassics, secured the imperial decree of November 18, 1895, by which women were admitted to the universities of Klausenburg and Budapest (to the philosophical and medical faculties). It was now necessary to prepare women for the entrance examinations (Abiturientenexamen). This was undertaken by the “General Hungarian Woman’s Club” (Allgemeine ungarische Frauenverein). With the aid of Dr. Béothy, a lecturer at the University of Budapest, the club formulated a programme that was accepted by the Minister of Public Instruction. By the rescript of July 18, 1896, he authorized the establishment of a girls’ gymnasium in Budapest. It is evident that such reforms, when inthe hands ofintelligentauthorities, are put into working order as easily as a letter passes through the mails.
In the professional callings we find 15 women druggists, 10 women doctors, and one woman architect. Erica Paulus, who has chosen the calling of architect (which elsewhere in Europe has hardly been opened to women), is a Transylvanian. Among other things she has been given the supervision of the masonry, the glasswork, the roofing, and the interior decoration of the buildings of the Evangelical-Reformed College in Klausenburg. A second woman architect, trained in the Budapest technical school, is a builder in Besztercze.
Higher education of women was promoted in the cities, the home industries of the Hungarian rural districts were fostered. This was taken up by the “Rural Woman’s Industry Society” (Landes-Frauenindustrieverein). Aprons, carpets, textile fabrics, slippers, tobacco pouches, whip handles, and ornamental chests are made artistically according to antique models (this movement is analogous to that in Scandinavia). Large expositions aroused the interest of the public in favor of the national products, for the disposal of which the women of the society have labored with enthusiasm. These home industries give employment to about 750,000 women (and 40,000 men).
Hungary is preëminently an agricultural country and its wages are low. The promotion of home industrytherefore had a great economic importance, for Hungary is a center of traffic in girls. A great number of these poor ignorant country girls, reared in oriental stupor, congregate in Budapest from all parts of Hungary and the Balkan States, to be bartered to the brothels of South America as “Madjarli and Hungara.”[79]An address that Miss Coote of the “International Vigilance Society” delivered in Budapest resulted in the founding of the “Society for Combating the White Slave Trade.” The committee was composed of Countess Czaky, Baroness Wenckheim, Dr. Ludwig Gruber (royal public prosecutor), Professor Vambéry, and others. The recent Draconic regulation of prostitution in Pest (1906) caused the Federation of Hungarian Women’s Clubs to oppose the official regulation of prostitution, and to form a department of morals, which is to be regarded as the Hungarian branch of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution. Since then, public opinion concerning the question has been aroused; the laws against the white slave traffic have been made more stringent and are being more rigidly enforced.
A new development in Hungary is the woman’s suffrage movement (since 1904), represented in the “Feminist Society” (Feministenverein). During the past five years the society has carried on a vigorous propagandain Budapest and various cities in the provinces (in Budapest also with the aid of foreign women speakers); recently the society has also roused the countrywomen in favor of the movement. Woman’s suffrage is opposed by the Clericals and theSocial-Democrats, who favor only male suffrage in the impending introduction of universal suffrage[80]. On March 10, 1908, a delegation of woman’s suffrage advocates went to the Parliament. During the suffrage debates the women held public meetings.
From the work of A. v. Maclay,Le droit des femmes au travail, I take the following statements: According to the industrial statistics of 1900 there were 1,819,517 women in Hungary engaged in agriculture. Industry, mining, and transportation engaged 242,951; state and municipal service, and the liberal callings engaged 36,870 women. There were 109,739 women day laborers; 350,693 domestic servants; 24,476 women pursued undefined or unknown callings; 83,537 women lived on incomes from their property. Since 1890 the number of women engaged in all the callings has increased more rapidly than the number of men (26.3 to 27.9 per cent being the average increase of the women engaged in gainful pursuits). In 1900 the women formed 21 per cent of the industrial population. They were engaged chiefly in the manufacture of pottery(29 per cent), bent-wood furniture (46 per cent), matches (58 per cent), clothing (59 per cent), textiles (60 per cent). In paper making and bookbinding 68 per cent of the laborers are women. In the state mints 25 per cent of the employees are women; the state tobacco factories employ 16,720 women, these being 94 per cent of the total number of employees. Of those engaged in commerce 23 per cent are women.
The number of women engaged in the civil service (as private secretaries) and in the liberal callings has increased even more than the number of women engaged in industry. The women engaged in office work have organized. In 1901 the number of women public school teachers was 6529 (there being 22,840 men),i.e.22.22 per cent were women. In the best public schools there are more women teachers than men, the proportion being 62 to 48; in the girls’ high schools there are 273 women teachers to 145 men teachers. In 1903 the railroads employed 511 women; in 1898 the postal service employed 4516 women; in 1899 the telephone system employed 207 women (and 81 men). These women employees, unlike those of Austria, are permitted to marry.
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
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. TheDeclaration 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 allsocial 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 harmonybetween 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 theprovincial estates,—for instance, Madame de Sévigné in theEstates Generalof 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 underthe 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 andanxiety, 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 forDemanding Woman’s Rights”; in 1878 they called the first French woman’s rights congress.
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 denythe justice of the woman’s rights movement. Hence everything now depends on theopportunenessof 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 WomenStudents (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, orlycées, for girls have existed since 1880. The programme of these schools is not that of the GermanGymnasiums, 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 establishingGymnasiumsfor girls; at present, efforts are being made to introduceGymnasiumcourses in the girls’lycées. The admission of girls tothe 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 theAbiturientenexamen(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 threeclassesof the elementary schools are equal to those of the men. The women teachers in thelycées(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 modernlanguages. 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 theindustries (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 theféminisme chrétienis 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]Theféminisme chrétienadvocates: 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.
The radicals demand: absolute coeducation; anti-military instruction in history; schools that prepare girls for motherhood; the admission of women to government positions; equal pay for both sexes; official regulation of the work of domestic servants; the abolition of the husband’s authority; municipal and national suffrage for women. A member of the radical party presented herself in 1908 as a candidate in the Parisian elections. In November, 1908, women weregranted passive suffrage for the arbitration courts for trade disputes (they already possessed active suffrage).
The founding of the National Council of French Women (Conseil national des femmes française) has aided the woman’s rights movement considerably. Stimulated by the progress made in other countries, the French women have systematically begun their work. They have organized two sections in the provinces (Touraine and Normandy); they have promoted the organization of women into trade-unions; they have studied the marriage laws; and have organized a woman’s suffrage department. Since 1907 the woman’s magazine,La Française, published weekly, has done effective work for the cause. The place of publication (49 rue Laffite, Paris) is also a public meeting place for the leaders of the woman’s rights movements.La Françaisearouses interest in the cause of woman’s rights among women teachers and office clerks in the provinces. Recently the management of the magazine has been converted to the cause of woman’s suffrage. In the spring of 1909 the French Woman’s Suffrage Society (Union française pour le souffrage des femmes) was organized under the presidency of Madame Schmall (a native of England). Madame Schmall is also to be regarded as the originator of the law of July 13, 1907, which pertains to the earnings of the wife. TheUnionhas joined the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. In the House of Deputiesthere is a group in favor of woman’s rights. The French woman’s rights movement seems to be spreading rapidly.
Émile de Morsier organized the French movement favoring the abolition of the official regulation of prostitution. Through this movement an extraparliamentary commission (1903-1907) was induced to recognize the evil of the existing official regulation of prostitution. This is the first step toward abolition.