Women's life in 1971 - free to vote, but chained on so many other aspects

*Find this weekend and throughout the week our special file on the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage in Switzerland*

Let’s imagine a young woman, whom we will call Monique, the most common first name in French-speaking Switzerland in the early 1970s. Monique said yes to Pierre at 24, the average age at which a Vaudoise married at the time. She works, like 40% of the 194,000 Vaudoise women over the age of 18 then.

Since Vaud gave them the right to vote at the cantonal level, 22 Vaudoises have sat on the Grand Council. Despite gaining the federal franchise, Monique was by no means free to do whatever she wanted in 1971.

Shorter in their studies compared to boys

In 1970, only 5% of Vaud women were in university or higher education (compared to 13% of men). Today, more than 40% of them access the tertiary level. In some cantons (like that of Vaud precisely), girls had to have better grades to access upper secondary education. In 1982, the Federal Supreme Court (TF) brushed this aside.

Husband's authorization to open certain accounts until 1988

Women could use their pay if they were employed. Otherwise, it is impossible to open a bank account without the consent of the husband. Activist Simone Chapuis-Bischof, soon to be 90, remembers: "I had stopped working when my son was born, but I earned a few pennies by creating crossword puzzles, when he was playing in the park, while the other mothers were knitting. This meager income fed into a savings account for him. One day when we wanted to buy him an anorak, I wanted to withdraw money from this account. The banker asked me if I had my husband's signature. I had one of those tantrums!”

What if Monique had inherited a bank account? It is Pierre who would have had the enjoyment of it and would have managed this money (but he would have had to return the sum to him in the event of a divorce).

Authorization of the husband to exercise a self-employed activity until 1988

Monique (who had to pay taxes even before obtaining the right to vote) could not have launched herself as an independent freely. This also required the authorization of Monsieur (whose property risked being seized in the event of his wife's bankruptcy). But if her husband's salary was not enough for the family, then the wife could be authorized by the court to engage in self-employment. “The husband had the main responsibility for the maintenance of the household, the wife intervening only in a subsidiary capacity”, recalls Denis Piotet, professor of civil law at UNIL.

Professional inequalities

Gabrielle Nanchen (one of the first 12 women to be elected to the Federal Parliament in 1971) remembers: "For a job at the State of Valais at the end of the sixty, they preferred me a candidate who had studied social sciences like me, but without obtaining the license. And he didn’t even have the required practical experience, which I had acquired alongside my studies.”

“In some cantons, a teacher had to quit her job if she married a civil servant, because we didn’t want two state employees in the same family,” says Simone Chapuis-Bischof.

The husband decided on the domicile and exercised “paternal power”

In the early 1970s, unlike today, the spouses had the obligation to have the same domicile. She dreamed of nature, but he preferred the city? In case of disagreement, the husband decided. The same for the children, since in the absence of an agreement, the husband possessed “paternal power” (we did not speak of parental authority, which women only obtained in 1978).

Only 4% of babies in Vaud were born out of wedlock (compared to 35% in 2019). If Monique had given birth, she would not have benefited from maternity leave (the 14 paid weeks dating from 2004).

Loss of surname and nationality

Until 1988, women lost their surname on marriage, "because the principle required a unity of surname for members of the same family", recalls Denis Piotet. Between 1988 and 2013, women could be registered in the civil registry with a double name (maiden and husband). But a man appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (wanting to adopt his wife's name), which forced Switzerland to review its copy. Since 2013, each spouse can choose the name of the other, but the possibility of a double name has fallen, because the legislator considered that it was too complicated to apply for civil status... "Result, we are almost there. back to the situation before 1988, because very few men take the name of their wife”, observes Denis Piotet. The former PS national councilor, involved in these issues, is now called Maria Bernasconi (and not Roth-Bernasconi): “It remains rare to keep your maiden name, except among convinced feminists and artists.”

If Monique had wanted to marry a foreigner, she would have had to declare that she wanted to keep her Swiss nationality, otherwise she would lose it. A more mandatory declaration since 1992.

According to the law, marital rape did not exist

Abortion was criminalized until 2002. If Monique had become pregnant without being married to Pierre and the latter fled, the The Penal Code of the time would have punished him with "abandonment of a pregnant woman", which no longer exists. “A whole series of other offenses have disappeared, where women were considered a small thing that had to be protected, explains the professor of criminal law at UNIL, Camille Perrier Depeursinge. For example, what today would be called street harassment; or even a form of harassment at work on the part of his employer, where he took note of a relationship of domination to protect the dominated. With the emancipation of women, these offenses disappeared because the legislator thought that they could protect themselves, but these problems are still there.

The concept of rape by a husband on his wife did not exist in the legislation until 1992. From that date, it was prosecuted on the complaint of the wife. It will be necessary to wait until 2003 for such an offense to be prosecuted ex officio.

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