Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - III. Constitution and Administration - 5. Social Movements - The Woman Question, by Miss Gertrud Adelborg, Stockholm
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the woman question.
273
than is the case in many other countries. But very probably an
additional cause will be — as previously pointed out — a most uncommon
supernumerary quantity of women in our country, in consequence of
which fact the question about single women’s chances of self-support
rather early became of actual importance with us.
Even if in bygone times both law and custom to a certain degree
secured the position of woman, nevertheless the definite reforms in this
respect belong to our own era. Swedish women have since 1845
possessed the same rights of inheritance as men, and since 1863 an
unmarried woman is of age. At first she attained her majority at the
age of 25, but, since 1884, at 21, or the same age as is the case of men.
A widow is in the state of majority whatever her age may be.
The position of a married woman continues to be less favourable. She is
still subjected to the guardianship of her husband and thus, actually, a minor.
The husband has in most cases the right to administer her property. However,
according to the statute of 1874, this right is so far restricted that the wife can,
by means of a contract drawn up prior to her marriage, obtain the right of
administering her own property, or a certain part of it, personally; she has this
right likewise with regard to what, under the same conditions, comes to her by
way of inheritance or gift. A married woman has the sole right to manage what
she acquires through her own labour. By the statute of 1898, the husband’s
right to dispose of real property belonging to his wife was, moreover, in certain
respects curtailed, and the wife’s liability for her husband’s debts contracted after
marriage, has been limited, besides which the wife has been provided with greater
facilities than previously for obtaining a separate estate decreed by law
(boskillnad), and by such means the right to manage her own property herself.
During the last decenniums an important revolution has taken
place in woman’s sphere of labour. Woman’s capacity for work, which
formerly found ample field in the manifold occupations of the household,
became superfluous in many places, owing to the development of
industries having caused such work to be executed far cheaper at
factories. The problem which now became more and more pressing was
how to utilize in another way the capacities for work set free by
such causes. With regard to women of the lower classes, this was easy
enough, on account of the situations offered them at the factories. Again,
with regard to the higher classes, a special training was obviously
demanded for new fields of labour, and opportunities in this direction
have also during the last fifty years been afforded on a large scale.
A great number of private colleges for girls have been established with
rather considerable State grants, and the State itself supports a Training School
for lady-teachers at these schools and several Training Schools for female teachers
at the common schools. In 1856, women obtained admission to the conservatory
at the Academy of Music, and in 1866 to the one at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1870, the Universities were thrown open to females, and during the period
1871/1900, 605 women in all have graduated from the colleges. In 1870,
women got the right to enter into the faculty of medicine, in 1873, they
were privileged to pass all university examinations (except in theology), and at
present we have in Sweden 3 lady Doctors of Philosophy, and 9 lady Doctors
Sweden. 18
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