1800–1849 ; 1803 • United Kingdom:
Lord Ellenborough's Act was enacted, making abortion after
quickening a
capital crime, and providing lesser penalties for the felony of abortion before quickening. ; 1804 • Sweden: Women are granted the permit to manufacture and sell candles. • France: Divorce is abolished for women in 1804. • France: Equal inheritance rights for women were abolished in 1804. ; 1810 • France: Until 1994, France kept in the French Penal Code the article from 1810 that exonerated a rapist in the event of a marriage to their victim. • France: The
1810 Napoleonic Code of France punished any person who procured an abortion with imprisonment. • Sweden: The right of an unmarried woman to be declared of
legal majority by royal dispensation is officially confirmed by parliament. • Sweden: Amendment to the
Guild Regulation of 1720 secures the right of all women of legal majority to apply and be granted a permit to work within all guild professions, trades and handicrafts without having to fulfill the normal requirement of male applicants, because of their greater difficulty to support themselves. ; 1811 • Austria: Married women are granted separate economy and the right to choose a profession. • Sweden: Married businesswomen are granted the right to make decisions about their own affairs without their husband's consent. ; 1817 • England: Public whipping of women abolished (public whipping of men followed in 1868). ; 1820–1900 • United States: Primarily through the efforts of physicians in the
American Medical Association and legislators, most abortions in the U.S. were outlawed. ; 1821 • United States, Maine: Married women allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse. • United States, Connecticut: A law targeted apothecaries who sold "poisons" to women for purposes of inducing an abortion. ; 1823 • Argentina: The charitable Beneficial Society is charged by the government to establish and control (private) elementary schools for girls (they retain the control of the schools for girls until 1876). • United Kingdom:
Offences Against the Person Act 1828 ; 1827 • United States, Illinois: An 1827 Illinois law prohibited the sale of drugs that could induce abortions. ; 1829 • India: The
Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829 bans the practice of
Sati in British Bengal (the ban is extended to Madras and Bombay the following year). • Sweden: Midwives are allowed to use surgical instruments, which are unique in Europe at the time and gives them surgical status. • United States, New York: New York made post-quickening abortions a felony and pre-quickening abortions a misdemeanor. ; 1830 • Madras and Bombay: The practice of
Sati is banned in Madras and Bombay. • Monaco and Spain: Male-preference
primogeniture is currently practised in succession to the thrones of Monaco and Spain (before 1700 and since 1830). ; 1833 • Spain: A variation on agnatic
primogeniture is the so-called semi-
Salic law, or "agnatic-cognatic primogeniture", which allows women to succeed only at the extinction of all the male descendants in the male line. Such was the case in Bourbon Spain until 1833. ; 1835 • United States, Arkansas: Married women allowed to own (but not control) property in their own name. • Greece: The modern Greek state and its penal system were created in the 1830s based on Bavarian laws. The system was designed by
Georg Ludwig von Maurer and came into effect in 1835. Articles 303-305 addressed abortion, either performed by a pregnant woman or a third party. Article 303-304: "If the mother who gave birth to a premature or dead infant used prior to that, knowingly, alone or with someone else, internal or external means, [means that] can cause a premature delivery or the death of the fetus in the mother's abdomen, she is punished with imprisonment. The same penalty is imposed on the midwives or pharmacists or others in the medical service who cause abortion with the consent of the pregnant woman or by recommending or by providing the means for performing such a felony." These sentences carried a maximum punishment of ten years for both the pregnant woman committing the act herself, as well as for any third party assistants. This law, although amended in the 20th century, remained effectively unchanged and enforced for 90 years. ; 1839 • United Kingdom: The
Custody of Infants Act 1839 makes it possible for divorced mothers to be granted custody of their children. • United States,
Mississippi: The
Married Women's Property Act 1839 grants married women the right to own (but not control) property in her own name. ; 1840 •
Republic of Texas: Married women allowed to own property in their own name. • Sweden: Compulsory
Elementary school for both sexes. • United States, New Hampshire: Married women allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse. • United Kingdom: The
Mines and Collieries Act 1842, commonly known as the Mines Act 1842, was an
act of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom which forbade women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work. ; 1843 • United States, Kentucky: Married women allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse. ; 1845 • Denmark: Married women, despite being minors, are given the right to make a will without the approval of their husbands. • Norway: "Law on the vast majority for single women", for which the age of majority was recognized at age 25, without a requirement for submitting to a guardian after that age. • Sweden: Equal
inheritance for sons and daughters (in the absence of a
will). • United States, New York: Married women granted patent rights. • United States, Alabama: Married women allowed to own (but not control) property in their own name. ; 1848 • United States, State of New York: Married Women's Property Act grant married women separate economy. • United States, Pennsylvania: Married women granted separate economy. • United States, Alabama: Married women allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse. • Iceland: Equal inheritance. • United States, California: Married Women's Property Act grant married women separate economy. ; 1851 • Guatemala: Full
citizenship is granted to economically independent women (rescinded in 1879). • Canada, New Brunswick : Married women granted separate economy. ; 1852 • Portugal: During the
Constitutional Monarchy, the article 358 of the
Penal Code of Portugal (1852) defined and prohibited abortion, which was punished with time in prison and considered, as a
mitigating factor, abortions that were done to hide the dishonor of the mother. The Penal Code of 1886 transposed, with little change, the abortion law of 1852. • Austria: For more than a century, the Austrian abortion policy was largely governed by the 1852 legislation that criminalized abortion. Both the woman willingly attempting to end her pregnancy and the individual conducting the abortion faced up to five years in jail. However, there were a few legal exceptions. If the pregnant woman's life were in urgent danger or her bodily and mental health would be significantly harmed by prolonging the pregnancy, there was no penalty if the pregnancy was the result of rape and use of force. Only the medical practitioner was permitted to conduct the abortion in these rare situations. • United States, New Jersey: Married Women granted separate economy. • Serbia: The first secondary educational school for females is inaugurated (public schools for girls having opened in 1845–46). • Sweden: The profession of teacher at public primary and elementary schools are opened to both sexes. ; 1854 • Norway: Equal inheritance. • Chile: The first public elementary school for girls. ; 1855 • Ottoman Empire: Factory work are open to both sexes when the first women are employed at the textile factory at Bursa, at the same time allowing them to mix unveiled with men. • United States, Iowa:
University of Iowa becomes the first coeducational
public or state university in the United States. • United States, Michigan: Married women granted separate economy. • United States, Connecticut: Married women granted patent rights. • United Kingdom:
Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 makes divorce possible for both sexes. • Netherlands: Elementary education compulsory for both girls and boys. • Spain: Elementary education compulsory for both girls and boys. • United States, Maine: Married women granted the right to control their own earnings. • Norway: Telegraph office professions open to women. • Sweden: Legal majority for unmarried women (if applied for: automatic legal majority in 1863). • United States, Kansas: Married Women's Property Act granted married women separate economy. Married women granted the right to control their own earnings. • Russia: The Scientific- and Medical Surgery Academy open laboratories for women (retracted in 1864). • United States, Illinois: Married women granted separate economy. ; 1864 • Belgium: The first official secondary education school open to females in Belgium. • Bohemia: Taxpaying women and women in "learned profession" eligible to the legislative body. • Finland: Legal majority for unmarried women. • Sweden: Women of legal majority (unmarried, divorced and widowed women) are granted the same rights within trade and commerce as men by the
Decree of Extended Freedom of Trade (Sweden). • Sweden: The gymnastics profession is open to women, • Sweden: The reformed law of 1864 abolished the death penalty for abortion and replaced it with between two and six years of
penal labour for both the patient who received an abortion, as well as for the person who provided it. • United States, North Carolina: The Supreme Court of North Carolina decided, in the case
State v. Black, that, "A husband cannot be convicted of a battery on his wife unless he inflicts a permanent injury or uses such excessive violence or cruelty as indicates malignity or vindictiveness; and it makes no difference that the husband and wife are living separate by agreement." ; 1865 • Ireland:
Married Women's Property (Ireland) Act 1865 • Italy: Legal majority for unmarried women. • Italy: Equal inheritance. • Romania:
The Romanian Penal Code of 1865, which followed shortly after the
union of the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and was in force between 1865 and 1936, banned abortion. Article 246 punished the person who performed the abortion with "
minimul recluziunei" (a shorter form of imprisonment), while the pregnant woman who procured her own abortion was only punished with 6 months-2 years imprisonment. The punishment increased for the persons who performed abortion if they were medical workers, or if the pregnant woman died. • US, Louisiana: Married women allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse. ; 1867 • Portugal: The Civil Code of 1867 secure legal majority and freedom from guardianship for unmarried, legally separated or widowed women, allows for civil marriage and gives married women the option to secure their right to separate economy by agreement prior to marriage. • Switzerland: Zürich University formally open to women, though they had already been allowed to attend lectures a few years prior. • United States, Alabama: Married women granted separate economy. • United States, Illinois: Illinois passed a bill in 1867 that made abortion and attempted abortion a criminal offense. • Belgium: Abortion in Belgium was first prohibited without exception by Articles 348 to 353 of the Belgian Criminal Code of 1867. Abortion was then defined as one of the crimes "against the order of families and against public morality". However, very few legal proceedings against illegal abortions took place until 1923, when a bill originally submitted by
Henry Carton de Wiart in 1913 was passed by the Belgian parliament that formally coded in legal penalties for incitement to abortion as well as advertising and promotion of
contraception. ; 1868 • Croatia: The first high school open to females. • United States, North Carolina: Married women granted separate economy. ; 1869 • Austria-Hungary: The profession of public school teacher is open to women. • United States, Illinois and Massachusetts: In 1869 legislation was passed in Illinois and Massachusetts allowing married women equal rights to property and custody of their children. ; Circa 1870 • United States, Illinois: Around 1870, Illinois passed another law banning the sale of drugs that could cause induced abortions. The law is notable because it allowed an exception for "the written prescription of some well-known and respectable practicing physician". • Finland: Women allowed to study at the universities by dispensation (dispensation demand dropped in 1901). • United Kingdom:
Married Women's Property Act 1870 • India:
Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870 • Mexico: Married women granted separate economy. •
Ottoman Empire: The Teachers College for Girls are opened in Constantinople to educate women to professional teachers for girls school; the profession of teacher becomes accessible for women and education accessible to girls. • Sweden: Universities open to women (at the same terms as men 1873). • United States, South Carolina: Married women granted separate economy. This was put into action and women served on gender-mixed juries with men for the next year. The first woman to serve on a jury was
Eliza Stewart Boyd. But once Howe was replaced by his successor in 1871, women were no longer called upon to serve on juries. (1870, 1890-1892). ; 1871 • India: First training school for woman teachers. • New Zealand: Universities open to women. • United States, Mississippi: Married women granted separate economy. • Japan: Compulsory elementary education for both girls and boys. • Japan: The Japanese government issued an edict (May 4, 1872, Grand Council of State Edict 98) stating, "Any remaining practices of female exclusion on shrine and temple lands shall be immediately abolished, and mountain climbing for the purpose of worship, etc., shall be permitted". However, women in Japan today do not have complete access to all such places. • Ottoman Empire: The first government primary school open to both genders. Women's Teacher's Training School opened in Istanbul. • Spain:
María Elena Maseras is allowed to enlist as a university student with special dispensation: having been formally admitted to a class in 1875, she was finally allowed to graduate 1882, which created a
Precedent allowing females to enroll at universities from this point on. • Sweden: Women are granted unlimited right to choose marriage partner without the need of any permission from her family, and arranged marriages are thereby banned (women of the nobility, however, are not granted the same right until 1882). • Switzerland: The universities of Bern and Geneva open to women (Lausanne follow in 1876 and Basel in 1890). •
erotica •
contraceptives •
abortifacients •
sex toys • Personal letters alluding to any sexual content or information • information regarding the above items. : In places like
Washington D.C., where the federal government had direct jurisdiction, the act also made it a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to sell, give away, or have in possession any "obscene" publication. : The law was named after its chief proponent,
Anthony Comstock. Due to his own personal enforcement of the law during its early days, Comstock received a commission from the postmaster general to serve as a special agent for the U.S. Postal Services. The case was brought to the court by
Myra Bradwell, who sought to be
admitted to the bar to practice law in
Illinois. • Japan: The profession of public school teacher is opened to women. • Netherlands:
Aletta Jacobs becomes the first woman allowed to study
medicine. • Sweden: Married women granted control over their own income. The law technically barred immigrants considered "undesirable", defining this as a person from East Asia who was coming to the United States to be a forced laborer, any East Asian woman who would engage in prostitution, and all people considered to be convicts in their own country. Only the ban on female East Asian immigrants was effectively and heavily enforced, and it proved to be a barrier for all East Asian women trying to immigrate, especially Chinese women. The Act was later repealed. ; 1876 • Argentina: Girls are included in the national school system by the transference of the control of the private girls schools from the charitable Beneficent Society to the provincial government. • United Kingdom: Universities open to women. • India: Women allowed to attend university exams at the Calcutta University. • Netherlands: Universities open to women. ; 1878 • Austria-Hungary: Women allowed to attend university lectures as guest auditors. • Bulgaria: Elementary education for both sexes. • Finland: Equal inheritance. • United Kingdom:
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford • United States, Virginia: Married women granted separate economy. • France: Colleges and secondary education open to women. ; 1880 • Australia : Universities open to women. • Belgium: The university of Brussels open to women. • France: Universities open to women. • France: Public teachers training schools open to women. • Norway: Women allowed to study at the university. • Poland: The
Flying University provides academic education for women. • Serbia: Compulsory education for both sexes. A woman who had changed her last name to one that was not her husband's original surname was trying to claim control over her
inheritance. The court ruled in her favor. This set forth many things. By common law, one may lawfully change their name and be "known and recognized" by that new name. Also, one may enter into any kinds of contracts in their new adopted name. Contracts include employment (see
Coppage v. Kansas 236 U.S. 1), and one can be recognized legally in court in their new name. ; 1883 • Belgium: Universities open to women. • Victoria, Australia: Married women granted separate economy. ; 1884 • France: Equal divorce legalized for women and men. • Switzerland: Legal majority for unmarried women (including widows). •
Ontario: Married women granted separate economy. • United Kingdom:
Married Women's Property Act 1884 ; 1886 • Costa Rica: A public academic educational institution open to women. • United Kingdom:
Guardianship of Infants Act 1886 • United Kingdom:
Josephine Butler puts a stop to the prostitution reglement. • Guatemala: Married women granted separate economy. which still functioned in post-colonial Mozambique until its replacement on 11 July 2014, stated that rapists who married their victim would not be punished. It was repealed in 2014. • Costa Rica: Legal majority for married women. • United States, Idaho: Married women granted separate economy. • Required an anti-polygamy oath for prospective voters, jurors and public officials. • Annulled territorial laws allowing illegitimate children to inherit. • Required civil
marriage licenses (to aid in the prosecution of polygamy). • Abrogated the common law
spousal privilege for polygamists, thus requiring wives to testify against their husbands. •
Disenfranchised women (who had been enfranchised by the Territorial legislature in 1870). • Replaced local judges (including the previously powerful
Probate Court judges) with federally appointed judges. • Abolished the office of Territorial superintendent of district schools, granting the supreme court of the Territory of Utah the right to appoint a commissioner of schools. Also called for the prohibition of the use of sectarian books and for the collection of statistics of the number of so-called
gentiles and Mormons attending and teaching in the schools. In 1890 the
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the seizure of Church property under the Edmunds–Tucker Act in
Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States. The act was repealed in 1978. • United States, Washington Territory: Women in the Washington Territory were granted jury service rights, but those rights were rescinded in 1887 due to a change in the territory's Supreme Court. In all other cases, a third party who attempted to abort a fetus without the woman's consent faced three to six years' imprisonment (five to ten years if the abortion was successful) or one to three years imprisonment if the woman consented (four to eight years if the abortion was successful). If a medical professional, midwife, or apothecary was found guilty of the above crimes, the sentence would be increased by six months to a year. The law also provided for reduced sentences, of 3–6 months (5–10 months if the abortion was successful), in the case of "honest women of good reputation" who received an abortion to "conceal their frailty" (
aborto honoris causa). • Germany: Women are allowed to attend university lectures, which makes it possible for individual professors to accept female students if they wish. • Switzerland: Secondary schools opened to women. • United Kingdom: The
Slander of Women Act 1891 was enacted. The Act was repealed for the Republic of Ireland on 1 January 1962 and for England and Wales on 1 January 2014 by section 14(1) of the
Defamation Act 2013. ; 1893 • France: Legal majority for unmarried, divorced and separated women. ; 1894 • Norway: Married women given right to engage in commerce. • United States, Louisiana: Married women granted trade license. ; 1897 • France: Women (regardless of marital status) eligible as witnesses in civil action. ; 1899 • Denmark: Legal majority for married women. • Iceland: Legal majority for married women. ==See also==