Stamp Honouring Concepción Arenal

The first feminist associations emerged in Spain at the end of the 19th century. They focused on obtaining civil rights, social improvements, access to education, and measures aimed at protecting motherhood. The struggle for suffrage began in the 1920s. Certain concessions, such as labor protection laws, greater access to university education, and a limited form of women's suffrage were introduced during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. Women over the age of twenty-three who were heads of households could vote and, starting at the age of twenty-five, could also be elected to municipal councils.

During the Second Republic, progress was made in the area of equality through legislative reforms. Probably the most important and well-known measure was the approval of women's suffrage, but it was not the only one. Article 43 of the 1931 Constitution, in addition to establishing marriage on the basis of equality between spouses, also recognized equal rights for both legitimate and illegitimate children. Civil marriage and divorce were legalized in 1932). In the labour sphere, Maternity Insurance granting maternity leave for working women and guaranteeing their right to return to their jobs afterwards, was introduced, although it did not cover domestic workers.

Among the reforms to the Civil Code were the equalization of the age of majority for men and women at 23, and the preservation of widows' parental authority over their children, even if they remarried. Changes to the Criminal Code included the abolition of the crime of adultery for women and that of cohabitation for men, both of which had carried the same penalty, and the elimination of the articles on honor-related parricide. These had punished women and men asymmetrically: the penalty for a man ranged from six months to six years of exile, while for a woman it was life imprisonment.

Despite the significant progress in women's rights during the Second Republic, there were still obstacles to achieving full equality. For example, the Civil Code continued to regard the husband as the legal representative of his wife, and the labor contracts law of 1931 required a married woman to obtain her husband's authorization in order to sign an employment contract and receive her wages. Additionally, in practice, discrimination in women's employment persisted, with women earning lower salaries than men in the same category and occupation.

ACS