THE FRANCE OF TODAY 



203 



each other mutual fideHty, aid, and coun- 

 sel." 



Civil. STATUS OF wome;n 



French women are said to be largely 

 free from active movements to foster 

 further advance by methods excitant of 

 bitterness, but they are steadily striving 

 to remove such legal disabilities as affect 

 their personal or professional life ; from 

 year to year new successes mark their 

 righteous campaigns. 



Hundreds of highly educated women, 

 trained mostly at Sevres, enter the 

 learned professions. Mme. Curie^s pro- 

 fessorship in the Sorbonne, where she re- 

 flects high credit on scientific research, is 

 a typical and not an isolated case of 

 women engaged in higher instruction. 

 Women may be teachers and scientists, 

 doctors and lawyers, but they cannot be 

 judges, though exceptionally they are on 

 the arbitration courts. Beginning with 

 commercial tribunals in 1898, their eligi- 

 bility now includes membership in the 

 supreme councils of labor, of coopera- 

 tion, of arts and manufacturers, of pub- 

 lic instruction, of conciliation courts, and 

 other public positions of dignity and im- 

 portance. 



It is interesting to note that under the 

 workman's compensation law the mar- 

 ried woman not only receives 20 per cent 

 in pension of her deceased husband's 

 wages, but that her death confers an 

 equal pension on her surviving husband. 



One of the most significant marks of 

 change in public opinion and of healthy 

 growth in morality is the granting of a 

 civil status to a betrayed woman. The 

 recent law of November 8, 1912, enables 

 her for the first time in modern France 

 to bring suit for herself and for her child 

 against the guilty father. 



PROTECTING CHILDREN 



The protection of children, which be- 

 gan legislatively more than 20 years since, 

 has more and more engaged the serious 

 attention of French statesmen. Then 

 more than 600,000 children under .16 

 years of age were crippling their bodies 

 and warping their minds by arduous pro- 

 longed labor in mines, factories, etc. The 

 law of 1874 lessened their day's work to 



12 hours (now 10), forbade under- 

 ground mines to them, as well as labor 

 under insanitary or harmful conditions 

 as to occupation or surroundings. Two 

 years later children were excluded from 

 establishments equipped with dangerous 

 machinery. Then came the compulsory 

 education law, which benefited the child 

 by postponing until 13 years his life of 

 labor by training his faculties and in- 

 creasing his useful knowledge. Later the 

 welcome and righteous Sunday law in- 

 sured weekly a day of entire change, if 

 not of recreation, for the child. 



Meanwhile generous and far-reaching 

 legislation has materially reduced the 

 frightful mortality of infants, due to 

 various causes. The most widely known, 

 was the system of nurse-farming, which 

 gave rise to the horrible scandals of the. 

 "angel makers." Under the Roussel law„ 

 the reduction in the mortality of the pro- 

 tected infants (under one year in age) 

 was greater by 3 per cent than for the 

 children of the whole nation, the mor- 

 tality being as follows: 1897, 24.3 per 

 cent, and 1908, 17.0 per cent for the pro- 

 tected, as against respective means of 

 17.2 per cent and 13. i per cent for the 

 nation. This reform is one of the most 

 creditable of recent years. 



One of the most remarkable reversals, 

 of a policy over a century old was the 

 law of July 2, 1907. It marked a long 

 moral stride when the law gave a girl- 

 mother a right to demand that her be- 

 trayer should provide for the support of 

 his child. It is admitted, apart from its. 

 justice, that this law will do much,, 

 through the protection and guardianship 

 of natural children, to reduce the rising 

 tide of juvenile criminals, who come in 

 such disproportionally large numbers, 

 from this unfortunate class. The largest 

 percentage of the ofl^enses of juveniles 

 (42 per cent) is for theft, which un- 

 checked in children rises in France to a 

 maximum in youths of 18 to 24 years. 



JUVENILE REEORM 



For nearly a quarter of a century- 

 France has been endeavoring, under the 

 Berenger law, to reform budding crimi- 

 nals by suspension of sentences against 

 juveniles for five years or until a relapse 



