Description
Book SynopsisIn 1900, German legislators passed the Civil Code, a controversial law that designated women as second-class citizens with regard to marriage, parental rights, and marital property. Despite the upheavals in early twentieth-century Germany the fall of the German Empire after the First World War, the tumultuous Weimar Republic, and the destructive Third Reich the Civil Code remained the law of the land. After Nazi Germany’s defeat in 1945 and the founding of East and West Germany, legislators in both states finally replaced the old law with new versions that expanded women’s rights in marriage and the family.
Entangled Emancipation reveals how the complex relationship between the divided Germanys in the early Cold War catalysed but sometimes blocked efforts to reshape legal understandings of gender and the family after decades of inequality. Using methods drawn from gender history and discourse analysis, the book restores the history of the women’
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Reimagining Postwar German Families, 1945–7 2. Gender Equality and the Family in the Two Constitutions, 1948–9 3. The Failed Reforms of Family Law, 1949–53 4. A Series of Stalemates, 1953–57 5. Achieving Equality, 1957–76 Conclusion Bibliography
