CHILDREN AT LE FAOUET 



Photo by E. M. Newman 



Children are not so much in evidence in France as in Germany. During a recent year 

 there were only 197 living births for each 10,000 people in France. During the same year 

 there were 305 living births for each 10,000 people in Germany. 



of the nineteenth century. Discrimina- 

 tory and inequitable laws imposed tyran- 

 nous regulations on their most intimate 

 life relations. Marital and domestic af- 

 fairs were entirely dominated by the hus- 

 band, whose control of property and of 

 children was practically absolute. Le- 

 gally the married woman was a non- 

 entity, and not only did not have a right 

 to spend her income, but not even her 

 personal earnings. 



Fortunately Frenchmen of the present 

 generation have acted with progressive 

 intelligence, and although the legal status 

 of the married woman still falls below 

 that accorded by American law, yet the 

 French woman's lot has much improved. 

 In 1884 there was eliminated from the 

 Code Civil an iniquitous discrimination 

 in favor of guilty men in connection 

 with divorces for cause. In 1891 it was 



granted that a woman had an equitable 

 right in her husband's estate — a right 

 hitherto denied. 



It appears surprising that it was not 

 until 1907 that the civil-status law was 

 extended so as to secure to women their 

 personal earnings. A woman might slave 

 all day, as a laundress or at manual 

 labor, with her husband standing idly by, 

 with the right — and in some cases scan- 

 dalously exercised — to demand her wages 

 and to squander them at will on her 

 rivals. Fortunately such abasement has 

 passed. 



A married woman can now transact 

 business, dispose of her property, and at 

 times even be the guardian of her chil- 

 dren. It was somewhat of a blow to the 

 ultra conservatives when it was officially 

 declared that marriage was an equitable 

 contract, and that "man and wife owe 



