ers.

NORWAY

Total population: 2,240,860.
Women: 1,155,169.
Men: 1,085,691.

League of Norwegian Women's Clubs.
Woman's Suffrage Association.

In recent years the Norwegian woman's rights movement has made marked
progress. Just as in the other Scandinavian countries, women were freed as
early as the middle of the nineteenth century from the most burdensome
legal restrictions by a liberal majority in Parliament. In 1854 the
daughters were given the same right of inheritance as the sons, and male
guardianship for unmarried women was abolished. However, the real woman's
rights movement, like that of Sweden and Finland, began in the eighties of
the last century. Aasta Hansteen, Clara Collett, Bjoernson, and Ibsen had
prepared public opinion for the emancipation of women. Like Frederika
Bremer, Aasta Hansteen had emigrated to America owing to the prejudices of
her countrymen; and, again like Frederika Bremer, she returned to her
native land and could rejoice over the progress of the movement which she
had instigated. In 1884 the Norwegian Woman's League was founded. It has
since 1886 published a semimonthly woman's suffrage magazine, _Nylaende_.
In 1887 the Norwegian woman's rights movement won the same victory that
Mrs. Butler had won in England in 1886: the official regulation of
prostitution was abolished (neither in Sweden nor in Denmark has a similar
reform been secured thus far). As early as 1882 several university
faculties had admitted women, and in 1884 women were given the legal
right to secure an academic training, and they were declared eligible to
receive all scholarships and all academic degrees. In 1904 a law was
enacted admitting women to a number of public offices. Paragraph 12 of the
Constitution excludes them from the office of minister in the Cabinet;
they are excluded from consulships on international grounds, from military
offices by the nature of the offices, and from the theological field
through the backwardness of the Norwegian clergy. But they were admitted
to the teaching and legal professions, and to some of the administrative
departments of the government. The law made no discrimination between
married and unmarried women. It is believed that the women can decide best
for themselves whether or not they can combine the work of an
administrative office with their domestic duties.

Hitherto the teaching profession had presented difficulties for women.
Few