The Traditional Christian Family Model and the Legal Status of Women in Hungary (1867‒1948)
The Traditional Christian Family Model and the Legal Status of Women in Hungary (1867‒1948)

Summary/Abstract: The role of women in society is characterized by their positions in their families, their economic status, their education, and their employment, along with the political rights they have and the appropriate enforcement of those rights. My research on the social situation of Hungarian women starts in the latter half of the 19th century, when, as a result of civil reforms in 1867, women’s rights began to progress. The objective of my research, which is summarised in the present paper, is the presentation of the status of women in the area of labour law. I wanted to find out whether the traditional family model survived the 19th century in Hungary, despite the fact that the status of women changed in the labour market and obviously also in family relations. In my work, focusing on the examination of the legal status of women, I concentrated on typical female jobs in agriculture. The paper focuses on the study of the available documents about women’s work in the Archives of Somogy. Likewise, the research enables us to review the contemporary and later literature. In Hungary, employment for women became more widespread after 1890. The legislation of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy is fairly illustrative of women’s status in labour law of the time. We can find that reforms in female education brought results only towards the end of the examined period. Until then women’s roles in society were determined by the traditional family model, by their limited access to education, and particularly by the lack of vocational training for them. In my study I tried to emphasize that labour rights of women were closely connected with their educational rights in the age of Dualism. The present paper also confirms that the ambitions of women’s movements to improve women’s situations were the only answer to the circumstances of the time.

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