ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how women's theoretical legal status changed during the sixteenth century. It turns from theory to reality, examining women's actions in courts and other legal bodies to assess the actual impact of these changes. The realm of legal theory in regard to women may itself be divided into two levels. The first is the level of pure theory, the discussion among jurists of 'woman' in the abstract. The second level of legal theory is made up of codes which transformed these ideas into actual laws and regulations. From theory to reality, the changes in the sixteenth century are less dramatic than one might expect, and may best be seen as long-term trends which continue on into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The reality of women's inferior legal status lagged somewhat behind the theory, but by the seventeenth century women throughout Germany found it increasingly difficult to act as independent legal persons in the way their grandmothers had.
