Until the mid-1980s, a Swiss husband could decide key family matters, including the family home: On 22 September 1985, 52% of men rejected reform, but women’s votes pushed it through

For most of the twentieth century, marriage law in Switzerland has been organized along the lines of making the husband an authority figure in the home. Marriage was not perceived as an equal partnership but as a hierarchical system influenced by the conventions of earlier civil codes that were established in the nineteenth century.

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