Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/1002

Rh by the club as an honorable title, and from that time it formally called itself the "American Club."

The Austrian code, in its treatment of women, is unsurpassed in contradictions. Women, for example, may testify in criminal actions, but they may not be witnesses to the simplest legal document. There are many absurdities of this sort in the existing law which were unknown in the ancient code of independent Bohemia, which was more liberal in its treatment of women. Divorce exists, but divorced persons cannot marry again. Bohemia being a part of Austria, women vote in the same way as has already been mentioned in what was said of the latter country. But at Prague, however, women do not vote, the capital still retaining its old laws on this subject.

Concerning the other grand division of the empire of the Hapsburgs, Hungary, much the same may be said as of Bohemia. It is only within the last forty years that Hungary has striven to attain to the level of occidental civilization and culture, so that the question of the amelioration of women's condition is of very recent origin in that country. Rose Revai, of Budapest, writes:

Hungarian legislators have always treated us favorably in all matters pertaining to the family, marriage and inheritance. By the mere act of marriage we attain our majority and are emancipated from tutelage. As heirs, our interests are not forgotten, and as widows, we have the control over our own children. In business and trade we enjoy equal rights with men. And Hungarian women have not been slow to take advantage of these privileges, as is shown by those of our sex who occupy worthy positions in literature, art, commerce, industry, the theater and the school-room.

Although the Hungarian universities are still closed against women, there are many girls' industrial and normal schools and colleges. The impetus given to female education in Hungary is chiefly due to the late Baron Joseph Eœtvœs, the savant, poet and philanthropist, who was minister of public instruction in 1867. Women are employed in the postal and telegraphic service.

Returning north, to Holland, we find much the same situation as in the other Teutonic nations. "The women of Holland are unquestionably better educated, and entertain as a body more liberal ideas than French women," said a Dutch lady to me, who had lived many years at Paris; "but, on the other hand, there is not the little group of women in the Netherlands who grasp the real meaning of the woman question as is the case here in France." Woman's social position is a little better in Holland