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Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting) represents formal changes and reforms regarding women's rights. That includes actual law reforms as well as other formal changes, such as reforms through new interpretations of laws by precedents. The right to vote is exempted from the timeline: for that right, see Timeline of women's suffrage . The timeline excludes ideological changes and events within feminism and antifeminism: for that, see Timeline of feminism .
A free-born woman may not be accompanied by more than one female slave, unless she is drunk; she may not leave the city during the night, unless she is planning to commit adultery; she may not wear gold jewelry or a garment with a purple border, unless she is a courtesan. [11]
One of the aspects highlighted in the Twelve Tables is a woman's legal status and standing in society. Women were considered to be a form of guardianship similar to that of minors, [14] and sections on ownership and possession give off the impression that women were considered to be akin to a piece of real estate or property due to the use of terms such as "ownership" and "possession". [14]
Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between two people in which the couple does not want to, or cannot, enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar, but mutually exclusive.
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. It is nearly a cultural universal, but the definition of marriage varies between cultures and religions, and over time. Typically, it is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually sexual, are acknowledged or sanctioned. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing sexual activity. A marriage ceremony is called a wedding, while a private marriage is sometimes called an elopement.
Babylonian law is a subset of cuneiform law that has received particular study due to the large amount of archaeological material that has been found for it. So-called "contracts" exist in the thousands, including a great variety of deeds, conveyances, bonds, receipts, accounts, and most important of all, actual legal decisions given by the judges in the law courts. Historical inscriptions, royal charters and rescripts, dispatches, private letters and the general literature afford welcome supplementary information. Even grammatical and lexicographical texts contain many extracts or short sentences bearing on law and custom. The so-called "Sumerian Family Laws" are preserved in this way.
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others, they are ignored and suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls, in favor of men and boys.
The Manusmṛti, also known as the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many Dharmaśāstras of Hinduism.
The legal rights of women refers to the social and human rights of women. One of the first women's rights declarations was the Declaration of Sentiments. The dependent position of women in early law is proved by the evidence of most ancient systems.
Oikos (Ancient Greek: οἶκος was, in Ancient Greece, two related but distinct concepts: the family and the family's house. Its meaning shifted even within texts.
Marriage in ancient Rome was a fundamental institution of society and was used by Romans primarily as a tool for interfamilial alliances. The institution of Roman marriage was a practice of marital monogamy: Roman citizens could have only one spouse at a time in marriage but were allowed to divorce and remarry. This form of prescriptively monogamous marriage that co-existed with male resource polygyny in Greco-Roman civilization may have arisen from the relative egalitarianism of democratic and republican city-states. Early Christianity embraced this ideal of monogamous marriage by adding its own teaching of sexual monogamy, and perpetrated it worldwide and became as an essential element in many later Western cultures.
A husband is a man involved in a marital relationship, commonly referred to as a spouse. The specific rights, responsibilities, and societal status attributed to a husband can vary significantly across different cultures and historical periods, reflecting a global perspective on this role.
The concept of rape, both as an abduction and in the sexual sense, makes its appearance in early religious texts.
Widow inheritance is a cultural and social practice whereby a widow is required to marry a male relative of her late husband, often his brother. The practice is more commonly referred as a levirate marriage, examples of which can be found in ancient and biblical times.
The Gortyn code was a legal code that was the codification of the civil law of the ancient Greek city-state of Gortyn in southern Crete.
Assyrian law, also known as the Middle Assyrian Laws (MAL) or the Code of the Assyrians, was an ancient legal code developed between 1450 and 1250 BCE in the Middle Assyrian Empire. It was very similar to Sumerian and Babylonian law, although the penalties for offenses were generally more brutal. The first copy of the code to come to light, dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I, was discovered in the course of excavations by the German Oriental Society (1903–1914). Three Assyrian law collections have been found to date. Punishments such as the cropping of ears and noses was common, as it was in the Code of Hammurabi, which was composed several centuries earlier. Murder was punished by the family being allowed to decide the death penalty for the murderer.
The study of the role of women in the society of early medieval England, or Anglo-Saxon England, is a topic which includes literary, history and gender studies. Important figures in the history of studying early medieval women include Christine Fell, and Pauline Stafford.
In pre-Islamic Arabia, a variety of different marriage practices existed. The most common and recognized types of marriage at this time consisted of: marriage by agreement, marriage by capture, marriage by mahr, marriage by inheritance and Mutah or temporary marriage.
The Zakonopravilo was the highest code in the Serbian Orthodox Church. It was finished in 1219. This legal act was written in simple language. Its basic purpose was to organize the continuation and functioning of the Serbian Kingdom and the Serbian Church. It was originally printed under the name Rules of Speech in Serbian at Raška, Serbia, in two successive issues, one for Wallachia and another for Transylvania. It is Serbia's first Serbian-language church-state constitution.
In the Sasanian Empire, the state religion Zoroastrianism created the policy that dictated relationships between men and women. Zoroastrianism set what roles women would have, the marriage practices, women's privileges in Sasanian society and influenced Islam when it arose. The moral standards, the structure of life, and the practices of the Sasanian society were found by looking at the religious writing and laws of the time. Women had legal rights, such as to own real estate, but the privileges a woman had depended on what type of wife she was, as did the restriction that were placed on her.
Adultery in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was a criminal offense which was defined as sexual intercourse between a married woman and a man other than her husband, and could lead to prison terms of between six months and six years. By contrast, the related crime for male infidelity was not treated the same: it was called amancebamiento and was defined as a married man keeping a mistress in the conjugal home, or keeping a mistress in a notorious manner outside the conjugal home. Adultery (adulterio) was often prosecuted, but not amancebamiento, with male infidelity being "a state of mind in Spain".
Marriage in ancient Greece had less of a basis in personal relationships and more in social responsibility, however the available historical records on the subject focus exclusively on Athens or Sparta and primarily on the aristocratic class. According to these records, the goal and focus of all marriages was intended to be reproduction, making marriage an issue of public interest. Marriages were usually arranged by the parents; on occasion professional matchmakers were used. Each city was politically independent and each had its own laws concerning marriage. For the marriage to be legal, the woman's father or guardian gave permission to a suitable man who could afford to marry. Daughters were usually married to uncles or cousins. Wintertime marriages were popular due to the significance of that time to Hera, the goddess of marriage. The couple participated in a ceremony which included rituals such as veil removal, but it was the couple living together that made the marriage legal. Marriage was understood to be the official transition from childhood into adulthood for women.
In ancient Rome, contubernium was a quasi-marital relationship between two slaves or between a slave (servus) and a free person who was usually a former slave or the child of a former slave. A slave involved in such a relationship was called contubernalis, the basic and general meaning of which was "companion".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Letfærdige Qvindfolk, som deris Foster ombringe, skulle miste deris Hals, og deris Hovet settis paa een Stage.[Loose women, who kill their fetus, shall lose their neck and have their head put upon a stake.]
