ABSTRACT
The concept of separate public and private spheres has been fraught with a lack of clarity since it first surfaced around the turn of the nineteenth century. Glaring contradictions and obvious gaps in the theory have been among the central concerns of gender historians for several decades now. Although antagonistic binaries such as ‘outside/inside’ or ‘public/private’ have gender-based connotations, they cannot simply be equated with ‘male/female’; this is an important result of gender history. This chapter deals with important areas of research in their thematic contexts. The codification of family and matrimonial property law within civil law thus shaped and legitimized the gendered concept of separate spheres. Legal history studies have shown that the gender-based assignment of male and female roles in law have, despite the flaws in the separate spheres framework, had enduring effects.
