ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complex ways in which divergent political developments in Norway and Sweden from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century impacted upon womens ability to take an active part in politics. From a European perspective, Scandinavian women were the first to get a universal vote in national parliamentarian elections. The right of Swedish parishes to participate in and exert their influence on local church elections has a long history and is recorded at least as far back as the medieval law-rolls of the Swedish Provinces. During the Age of Liberty and, especially by the end of the period, the two commoner estates of burghers and peasants got political influence, not least through the party system of hats and caps. However, in local politics, Sweden continued a system with female taxpayers voting, while the feminist movements in Norway and Denmark had to struggle on until 1910 and 1915, respectively, before women got the universal vote in local elections.
