happy birthday, social equality

it is 50 years ago today that the law for social equality for men and women in germany came into force. 

after WW II in 1949, germany had received a modern charter that stated, among other things, that "man and woman are equal" in article 3. in this spirit, federal law had to be reviewed and changed - the right to resolve marriage, changeing of names in marriage, sharing of properties, the "educational" right - to decide over education, residence and so forth of the children in marriage - all these things and many more were in favour of the husband. a widow even lost her educational right over her children when she married another man; the new husband became the lawful father of her children automatically.

the conservative government of the 1950 with conrad adenauer as chancellor had many ways of postponing and interfering with the law in its genesis. both catholic and protestant church had  warned the government about changing "the natural order of things" within marriage. the government was supposed to adapt "simple law" (federal law) to article 3 of the charter and had submitted proposals still containing parts that contradicted the charter. because until 31st of march 1953 this law was not passed and the term for adaption of federal law had run out, from 1st april 1953 marriages in germany were without regulation by law. which turned out to be a good thing, because federal constitutional court ruled that since the running out of the term, within marriage husband and wife were equal according to article 3 of the german charter. in case of a litigation, all the little details that were now not fixed by the missing federal law would have to be decided by courts according to the specific case.

so, in december 1953 the same dubitable law proposal that still contained many un-constitutional paragraphs was handed in and came into force 4 1/2 years later - after heavy discussions and arguments in parliament - on 1st june 1953.

but don't you think that that was it. thank god no. since then they have been working on it - hopefully for the better, i'm not familiar with all the details - and the last change has been submitted in 2006 and came into force on 25th april 2006. 

to give you something in perspective: the rape of a woman by her husband is only rape by law since 1998.