ABSTRACT

The Social Democrats and the Social Liberals were more radical in regard to gender equality, but all parties supported equality and marriage reforms. This chapter explores that although the idea of gender equality was formulated and broadly accepted from the 1850s in Denmark, the meaning of equality differed between political actors and shifted over time. It aims to contribute theoretically a more differentiated picture of family policies through the 20th century and we therefore use as our point of departure a contextualized concept of equality and historically specific debates about citizenship. The chapter explains that the marriage reforms of the 1920s did not result in a 'weak male-breadwinner model', but a 'modified dual-breadwinner model'. The tax law system and the debates over reform of that system show that, until the 1960s, married women's situation was precarious when it came to fundamental citizenship rights.