Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1113

 servative attitude towards women. They have recently been admitted to a few of the universities.

In most of the Prussian towns the property qualifications of the wife are accounted to the husband in order that he may take part in municipal elections. In Saxony women proprietors of landed estates, whether married or single, are entitled to a municipal vote but this can be exercised only by proxy, and for this purpose one of their male relatives must be invested with their property. In Saxony, Baden, Wurtemburg, Hesse, the Thuringian States and perhaps a few more, women are permitted to attend public political meetings and be members of political societies, but in all other German States they are excluded from both. They are thus prohibited from forming organizations to secure the franchise. In Westphalia since 1856, and Schleswig-Holstein since 1867, all qualified women have some form of suffrage by male proxy.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, since 1862, women with property have a proxy vote in municipal and provincial elections and for members of the Lower House of the Parliament, but there are many restrictions to this law. In Bohemia, since 1873, women who are large landed proprietors have a proxy vote for members of the Imperial Parliament and the local Diet.

In Russia among the peasant class the representative of the household votes. The wife, if owner of the necessary amount of property, may select her husband as proxy, but he may also delegate his vote to the wife, and it is a common thing to see her take his place at elections and at village and country meetings of all kinds. In the cities and territorial assemblies, women, married or unmarried, possessing sufficient property, may vote by male proxy for members of the municipal and county assemblies. Property-owning women of the nobility may vote by proxy in the assemblies of the nobility. Part of the universities are open to them. There are 650 women physicians in Russia.

So far as can be learned women are not eligible to office in the above-mentioned countries with a very few exceptions.

In Finland, since 1865, widows and spinsters may vote at rural elections; since 1873 those who are rate-payers may vote at municipal elections. Since 1889 women are eligible as Guardians