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Re: women lost a great deal

Posted by Juliet on 9/25/2005, 21:05:30, in reply to "women lost a great deal"
Hi Sarah! Well, you're right, theoretically. The revolution granted women rights to property and to participate politically, and Napoleon rescinded those rights for married women (though, IIRC, he improved the status of widows.) But I don't think women really got much chance to exercise those rights between 1793 and 1803. No argument that he was a dictator-- but he did continue broad rights for men and extended those rights in every country he took control of. As for order, under the circumstances in France at the time,it seems to me to be quite an improvement for everybody. But things certainly deteriorated later.

The Code Napoleon could certainly have used improvement as far as rights of the accused, but I would argue it was head and shoulders above most other contemporary courts.


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