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2. Voltaire, said: “Human culture taken as a whole may be described as the process of man's progressive self liberation.” Man's! — Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture (New Haven: Yale, 1944) at 228Google Scholar.

3. He explicitly disavowed the tenets of the Enlightenment in his prize essay on the Arts and Sciences as well as in subsequent essays. He implicitly renounced the rational element of the Enlightenment in every aspect of his personal life—as far as it must not be attributed to a pathological cause.

4. Horkheimer, M., Eclipse of Reason (Oxford: 1947)Google Scholar; Adorno, T. W.Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1980)Google Scholar; Foucault, M.Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon, 1977)Google Scholar. Rabinow, , ed., Foucault Reader, “What is Enlightenment?” (New York: Pantheon, 1984)Google Scholar, The Order of Things (London: Tavistock, 1970)Google Scholar; MacIntyre, A., Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (University of Notre Dame: Ind., 1988)Google Scholar; Arnaud, A.-J., Essai d'analyse structurale du Code de France (Paris: L.G.D.J, 1973)Google Scholar.

5. Carole Pateman, Susan Okin, Lorraine Code, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Claudia Honegger and others. Citations in the following notes.

6. “Patriarchy “—as Ideal Type—is used here to indicate the ideology and the practice which places women under the authority of men, in society in general and within the family in particular. The term applies to its precapitalist as well as to its later forms. See Jean Bethke Elshtain on patriarchy as a social form and patriarchy used as metaphor in Public Man, Private Woman (Princeton, 1981) at 214Google Scholar.

7. Schroeder, supra, note 1 at 33.

8. Weber, Marianne, Ehefrau und Mutter in der Rechtsentwicklung (Tübingen: Mohr, 1907)Google Scholar.

9. Among others, he proved conclusively the superiority of men over women “because only men grow beards.” He also wrote Witchhammer which was a bestseller.

10. Ullmann, W., Law and Politics in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: 1975) at 30Google Scholar.

11. Pateman, C., The Sexual Contract (Stanford, 1988)Google Scholar.

12. M. Weber, supra, note 8 at 295.

13. Especially Émile, Discourses on the Origins and Foundation of the Inequality of Men, and the New Héloïse.

14. For the functionalist argument, see Okin, S. M., Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton: 1979) at 242Google Scholar. Also Parsons, T. & Bales, R. F., Family, Socialisation and Interaction Process (Glencoe: 1955)Google Scholar.

15. S. Okin, ibid. at 116.

16. Émile (Paris: Ch. Blot, no date) at 412.

17. S. Okin, supra, note 14 at 102.

18. Schlosser, J. G., Briefe über die Gesetzgebung (Frankfurt/M: J. G. Fleischer, 1789)Google Scholar.

19. Okin, supra, note 14 at 115.

20. Since the late seventeenth century when, especially in France, the nobility was drawn to the royal courts, the attending ladies managed to obtain a higher profile, some even a measure of power. This gender relationship was copied in the salons of lesser social strata. As a result, some of the more talented (and wealthier) women attained a measure of personal self-fulfillment—to be swept away by Revolution and Napoleon. N. Elias, , Die höfische Gesellschaft, (Tübingen: Suhrkamp, 1983) at 292, 361Google Scholar. Also Luhman, N., in Liebe als Passion, (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1984) at 126Google Scholar, speaks of a new understanding of love in the eighteenth century (mainly in upper-class England and in Germany): the discovery of women as persons with an identity, capable of acquiring an education and having social relations outside their families. As a consequence, he suggests that “marriage was enthierarchisiert” at 127.

21. Gianformaggio, L., “The ‘Physical Organisation’, Education and Inferiority of Women in D. Diderot's Refutation of Helvétius.” in Arnaud, A. J. & Kingdom, E., eds., Women's Rights and the Rights of Man (Aberdeen, University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

22. C. A. Helvétius, De l'Homme et de l'Education.

23. Noted also by N. Luhmann, supra, note 20 at 128.

24. Honegger, C., Bürgerin oder Sklavin? (Historisches Museum Frankfurt: Jonas, 1989)Google Scholarx.

25. Leschinsky, A., Roeder, P. M., Die Schule im historischen Prozess (Stuttgart: 1976) at 110Google Scholar.

26. Since the early 1700s, there had been a few feeble voices in England complaining about the appalling conditions for women, none as clear and consistent as Mary Wollstonecraft's and all largely ignored by society. See P. Ward Scaltsas, “Women as Ends—Women as Means in the Enlightenment” in A. J. Arnaud & E. Kingdom, eds., supra, note 21 at 138.

27. Wollstonecraft, M., Works, vol. IV at 161Google Scholar.

28. P. Ward Scaltsas, supra, note 26, analysed the arguments in favour of education for women as being either functionalist—educated women could contribute more to the society (of men)—or liberal-perfectionist—to give women a chance of self-fulfillment. She claims that Mary Wollstonecraft managed to integrate these two divergent claims in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

29. Flexner, E., Mary Wollstonecraft (Baltimore: Penguin, 1973) at 163Google Scholar.

30. Most of these women were of the lower classes. The women of the bourgeoisie participated mostly in the gentle manner of sacrificing their jewellery for the cause. Whereas street rioting was not new to the women of the poverty-stricken underclass, they had been driven to bread revolts before, but now the aim had become political, as when the market women marched on Versailles. This event as well as their part in the storming of the Bastille has been greatly publicized by the counterrevolutionaries. In writing and in caricature these women were depicted as contemptible furies. (See Schiller's, Die Glocke, “… da werden Weiber zu Hyänen…” Werke, vol. 1 [Salzburg, 1971] at 173)Google Scholar.

31. Neither the Declaration of Human Rights of 1789 nor the Bill of Rights of 1776 nor the U.S. Constitution consider women's rights.

32. Essai sur la constitution et le fonctionnement des assemblées provinciales. Also see Lettres à un bourgeois à New Haven.

33. de Gouges, O., Oeuvres, ed. Groult, Benoîte, (Paris: Mercure de France, 1986) at 35Google Scholar.

34. Gouges, supra, note 33 at 39.

35. Ibid., at 60.

36. Le déret du 9 brumaire an II (30 October 1793).

37. Anne Josephe Théroigne de Méricourt's dramatic life stands out even in those turbulent times. Orphaned very young, she was used by her Italian music teacher until her money ran out, then used by an Englishman until her charms wore out. She then had to maintain herself and her two younger brothers through menial work, exploited by relatives and strangers. As a single woman she was prevented from settling in a rural community. An activist of the early period, she was censured by the radicals as a Girondist, then she was abducted by the Austrians and kept as a political prisoner at the fortress of Kufstein. She was later released after her written statement about her past proved her politically innocuous although a fervent revolutionary. Back in Paris she was celebrated at a session of the Jacobin Club as “martyr of freedom.” Resuming her activism, she agitated for the formation of an Amazon regiment to fight for the Revolution. She found little support but was denounced as a trouble maker. After her heroic part in a rebellion in 1792, which resulted in the general franchise for all men, she was decorated with the “Citizen's Crown.” But in early 1793 she was again incriminated as Girondist by members of the Société des femmes(!) républicaines révolutionnaires who were responsible for the public thrashing. A year later she was arrested, declared insane, institutionalized; she died in 1817 in la Salpêtrière. Ernst, O., Théroigne de Méricourt (Paris: 1935)Google Scholar. Théroigne de Méricourt, Aufzeichnungen aus der Gefangenschaft trans, of her original MS (in pencil) by Grubitzsch, H. & Bockholt, R. (Salzburg: Residenz, 1989)Google Scholar.

38. See Barker, N., “Let Them EatCake,” Proceedings, The 22nd meeting of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

39. The women's activism did not fit the image that had been fashioned of females as weak and sensitive and yielding. Hence the tone of outrage about politicized women by 1795 was not entirely fake, it was rather a mixture of fear and disillusionment. See Honegger, supra, note 24.

40. Garaud, M., La Révolution et l'égalité civile (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1953) at 178Google Scholar.

41. Gouges, supra, note 33 at 62.

42. E., & Goncourt, J., Journal, ParisGoogle Scholar.

43. Garaud, supra, note 40 at 179.

44. Ibid.

45. Conrad, H., “Die Rechtsstellung der Ehefrau in der Privatgesetzgebung der Aufklärungszeit” in FS für Gerhard Kallen (Bonn: Peter Haustein Vlg. Bonn, 1957) at 265Google Scholar.

46. A safeguard against the father confessor's influence in this matter.

47. In his last draft, Cambacérès already distanced himself from this principle of common administration “because it could lead to serious disagreements.” He admitted the possibility that the administration could be equally as well in the hands of the wife as in those of the husband. However, this would be against the natural law and “would it not imply ‘l'imbécillité du mari’?”. Weber-Will, S., Die rechtliche Stellung der Frau im Privatrecht des Preussischen ALR von 1794, (Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang, 1983) at 170Google Scholar.

48. Möhrmann, R., Die andere Frau, (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1977) at 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. A well-known remark Napoleon made during a session of the codification commission when discussing marriage law was: “Something that is quite unfrench is that a woman may do as she pleases.” Another: “A husband must have absolute authority over his wife's actions. He has the right to tell her, Madame, you may not go out, you may not go to the theatre, you may not associate with XY.”

50. Conrad, supra, note 45 at 268.

51. Weber, supra, note 8 at 320.

52. Arnaud, supra, note 4 at 66, 72.

53. Code pénal, art. 298, s. 2.

54. Weber-Will, supra, note 46 at 325.

55. Communication might have a chance of resolving disputes between spouses in Wolffs system because of his belief in the importance of a common tradition, a consensus about duties and rights of family members. This makes him one of those whom Susan Okin reproves (together with Alastair McIntyre) in justice, Genderand the Family, c. 3 (New York: Basic Books, 1989)Google Scholar.

56. Weber, supra, note 8 at 301.

57. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (Berlin: 1797)Google Scholar.

58. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, (Riga: 1785)Google Scholar.

59. Kant, E., Die Drei Kritiken (Stuttgart: Kroener, 1975)Google Scholar.

60. Weber, supra, note 8 at 305.

61. Modern feminist criticism is based on another aspect of Kant's philosophy. His bifurcation of the human existence into a noumenal and a natural (phenomenal) may lead to the conclusion that in women the latter is stronger than in men, thus limiting women's moral propensities in comparison to men's. As a consequence, male control over women would be justified. See Elshtain, J. Bethke, Meditations on Modern Political Thought, (New York, London: Praeger, 1986) c. 3Google Scholar.

62. Weckbecker, W., Von Maria Theresia zu Franz Josef (Berlin: Verlag fur Kulturpolitik, 1929)Google Scholar.

63. Kickenbusch, I. & Riedmueller, B., eds., Die armen Frauen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984) at 107Google Scholar.

64. Möhrmann, supra, note 48 at 21.

65. Duelmen, R. van. Geheimbund der Illuminaten (Stuttgart: 1975)Google Scholar.

66. Presently available in an expanded 5th edition of Sämtliclie Werke, (Berlin: Reimer, 1828)Google Scholar, photomechanically copied by DeGruyter: Berlin, New York, 1978.

67. Sämtliche Werke, ibid., at vol. 6.

68. A biographical entry in the Encyclopaedia of Biographies is surprisingly uncomplimentary about his character. It describes him as “ambitious and greedy,” “he started as a poor man and ended up wealthy,” “he had almost finished his theological studies when he decided to study law because a career in law would ensure wealth.” Does this reflect a resentment against the untimely defender of women?

69. Weber-Will, supra, note 47 at 51.

70. So in Griesinger, L. F., Commentar über das Würtembergische Landrecht, Bd. 4 (Frankfurt & Leipzig: 1794) at 1140Google Scholar.

71. Hattenauer, H., Introduction to Textausgabe des Allgemeinen Landrechts fuer die Preussischen Staaten (Frankfurt: Metzner Verlag, 1970)Google Scholar.

72. The Prussian code—unlike the French and the Austrian codes—contained, besides private law, also public law, criminal law and procedure.

73. Schlosser, supra, note 18 at 275ff.

74. Hattenauer, supra, note 71 at 21.

75. This combination was not seen then as irreconcilable as it now appears to us. The privileges of nobility were treated in this code as private property rights and thus fitted into the code that dealt with the property concerns of the new bourgeoisie. Birtsch, G., “Zur sozialen und politischen Rolle des deutschen, vornehmlich preussischen, Adels am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts” in Kluxen, et al. , Der Adel vor der Revolution (Goettingen: Vanderhoeck, 1971)Google Scholar.

76. The code was theoretically conceived as subsidiary law to provincial laws which, however, with one exception were never codified, thereby giving the code ultimate validity.

77. Schlosser, supra, note 18 at 279.

78. Ibid., at 284.

79. Ibid. at 298ff.

80. Ibid., at 296.

81. Saxl, I., Über die Beziehungen des preussischen Landrechts zur Codification unseres Civilrechts (Wien: A. Hoelder, 1893)Google Scholar.

82. Swoboda, E., Die Neugestaltung der Grundbegriffe unseres bürgerlichen Rechts (Wien: Richterverlag, 1929)Google Scholar. Questioned by Gunter Wesener in Wesenberg, G. & Wesener, G., Neuere Deutsche Privatrechtsgeschichte (Lahr: Schauenburg, 1976)Google Scholar. Also Wesener, G., “Zeiller's Lehre von Vertraegen überhaupt” in Selb, W. & Hofmeister, H., eds., Forschungsband Franz von Zeiller (Wien: Boehlau, 1980)Google Scholar.

83. von Zeiller, F., Kommentar über das Allgemeine Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch, vol. 1 (Wien, Triest: 1811–1813) at 250Google Scholar.

84. This article became irrelevant in 1848 with the formal abrogation of privilege by birth.

85. Swoboda, supra, note 82 at 19.

86. Ibid., at 23.

87. For details about legitima portio in earlier drafts of the code and in the commission's discussion, see Hofmeister, H., “Die Rolle Franz von Zeiller's bei den Beratungen zum ABGB” in Selb, W. & Hofmeister, H., Forschungsband Franz von Zeiller (Wien: Boehlau, 1980)Google Scholar.

88. Among others, Fichte, J. G., Grundlagen des Naturrechts, vol. 2 (Jena, Leipzig: 1796) at 72ff.Google Scholar; Schopenhauer, A., Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 2 (Berlin: Bibliographische Anstalt, 1847) at 529ff.Google Scholar; Nietzsche, F., Werke, vol. 2 (Leipzig: A. Kröner, 1930) at 495ffGoogle Scholar.

89. See Schröder, supra, note 1 at 27,83ff; Weber, supra, note 8 at c. 5; Proudhon, P. J., Von der Anarchie zur Pornokratie (Paris: 1875, Zuerich: 1970)Google Scholar; Elshtain, supra, note 6 at 175.

90. See Code, L., What Can She Know? (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar. Also Okin, supra, note 14.