ABSTRACT
This book integrates women’s history and legal studies within the broader context of modern European history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sixteen contributions from fourteen countries explore the ways in which the law contributes to the social construction of gender. They analyze questions of family law and international law and highlight the politics of gender in the legal professions in a variety of historical, social and national settings, including Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern and Central Europe. Focusing on different legal cultures, they show us the similarities and differences in the ways the law has shaped the contours of women and men’s lives in powerful ways. They also show how women have used legal knowledge to struggle for their equal rights on the national and transnational level. The chapters address the interconnectedness of the history of feminism, legislative reforms, and women’s citizenship, and build a foundation for a comparative vision of women’s legal history in modern Europe.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |24 pages
Introduction
part |97 pages
Gender and Family Law
chapter |28 pages
Adaptation, Emulation, or Tradition?
chapter |21 pages
Democracy at Home
chapter |26 pages
Equality at Stake
part |195 pages
Women in the Legal Professions
chapter |27 pages
The Rise of “Modern Portias”
chapter |24 pages
The First Lawyers and Attorneys
chapter |30 pages
“The Napoleonic Civil Code is to Blame for My Decision to Study Law”
part |109 pages
Transnational and International Intersections