ABSTRACT
In the beginning of our story all significant societies were clearly patriarchal. There was no single exception. Overwhelming opinion among the powers that be was well expressed by an enlightened, aristocratic Dutch Liberal, then Minister of Justice, P.W.A. Cort van der Linden, who said in parliament in 1900: ‘The character of marriage is nevertheless, in my view, incompatible with a principled equality between man and woman’ (Sevenhuisen 1987: 235).
