Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

234 • The Making of a German Constitution1876, the ADF published Einige deutsche Gesetzes Paragraphen über die Stellungder Frau, which called for the introduction of civil legislation to protect the rights ofwomen, particularly relative to marriage and guardianship laws. 115Only two decades later, it was the impending denial of civil rights under the BGBthat spurred the founding of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF) in 1894. TheBDF’s legal commissions were set up the same year. The first organized strike ofwomen workers occurred in the confection industry, not surprisingly in 1896. AsGeisel points out, the strike in 1896 was tied to a protest against the BGB. Unlikeother strikes, however, these women were joined on the picket lines by some fivehundred middle class women. 116 Indeed, the BDF’s final petition to the Reichstagcalling for a revision of the family law in 1899 clearly stated the resolve of Germanwomen: ‘The unusual request for a change in the law after its promulgation, butbefore its introduction, is justified by the deeply injured feelings of German women,whose conscience will never reconcile with these laws’. 117 It went on to state thatwomen regarded the BGB’s Mundium over women as ‘an unjust limitation of theirhuman rights’. 118 Grassroots discontent with the Code’s denial of women’s rights extendedwell beyond the ranks of women, however. The petition was signed by somefifty thousand men and women across class lines. Paradoxically, bürgerliche law wasperhaps the greatest unifying force for the Left in Germany after 1900.The bitterness of German women was stoked by the Reichstag’s arrogant refusaleven to consider the complaints of women. Gottlieb Planck resolutely, and withoutreservation, told members of Göttingen Frauenverein that, despite demands tochange the draft from radical as well as moderate representatives of the women’smovement, ‘the legislators finally decided against taking the women’s demand intoconsideration, and the Code was based on the draft.’ 119 Planck ‘did not have any illusionsabout reaching an agreement with the representatives of the women’s movement’.120 He simply laid down the law to his female audience, pointing out in a clearreference to social discipline powers of Paragraph 6 that ‘incurable mental diseasewas grounds for divorce’. 121 ‘The Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch’, he explained, ‘sets outthe following rules about the personal relationship between the spouses: cohabitationis a marital duty for the spouses; in matters regarding the conjugal life, the vote ofthe husband is decisive. Irrespective of this right of the husband, the wife is entitledand obligated to manage the domestic affairs.’ 122 As a consolation for the loss of theirproperty to men, Planck told German women ‘the wife can buy her household necessities,food and drink from the butcher, baker or Kolonialwaarenhändler on creditand only the husband will be responsible.’ 123Many men registered their complaints about the BGB’s family law, only to bedismissed as well. In the Reichstag, August Bebel and the SPD demanded the modificationof the marriage law to reflect full equality between husbands and wives andthe full economic freedom of women. 124 The SPD was the only faction to vote unanimouslyagainst the Code’s introduction. The conservative Baron von Stumm-Halberg