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266 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
» Paris, November, 1862. Iw A Late Numbe...
It will thus be seen that each member who has not readied the age of forty pays 16 f . 25 c . for the first yearand 15 f . for every other
, , whilst those who have attained that age pay 3 If . 25 c . for the first year , and 15 f . for each of the following .
k alread The y custom stated of as joining a general socie rule tes de confined secours mu to tu men els is even , as has in P been aris
where the conditions , of the munici , pal societies are , the same for , both sexes . Throughout the empirethere werein the year I 860
, , , 419 , 283 men who availed themselves of the advantages they hold out to members , and only 75 , 000 women ; whilst in the
Department of the Seine the first amounted to 64 , 762 , and the last to 15415 .
, In the country and the private societies , this is chiefly due to the prejudices which exist against workwomen j for in a small country
town , the existence of a societe de secours mutuel becomes more quickly known to the community at large than in a great city .
But in Paris , I have been informed that it is owing to several causesthe chief ones proceeding from the existing state of the
, marriage laws and the social subjection in which women have been kept . A woman who has not been married under the regime de la
¦ separation des biens cannot become a member of any society , excepting a religious onewithout the written consent of her husband
signed before a notary , . In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this , consent is withheldeven though by giving it a workman might
, be certain that his wife would , during illness , obtain the medical aid so necessary to secure her recovery . Frequently the Paris
workmen take umbrage at their wives for proposing to become members of the associations which exist in the French capital
for the purpose of enabling the working classes to keep out of the hospitals . Even while the unhappy beings are obliged to
attend to their children , their apartment , and contribute by their earnings to the common expenses of the familytheir husbands say
, , with an air of offended dignity worthy of a Spanish Don , that they are able to take care of their better halves whenever sickness may
take hold of them . But in most cases when sickness comes their better halves are sent off to the hospitalor so badly nursed at
, home that they often sink under it , or acquire the germs of lifelong diseases .
Another reason is the great ignorance of French workwomen . There are conservatoires des arts et _metiersmechanics' institutes
lecture rooms , socUtes _JFranJclin , polytechni , que and philotechnique , institutions for workmenwhereif their education has been
neglected during childhood , , they _* can acquire the intellectual sharpening without which they cannot form self-supporting
associations , or even follow up the initiative which Government or the charitably disposed members of the higher classes may have
ijaken , in forming societies for the benefit of the working classes .
But there is nothing of the kind for female operatives . The
266 Our French Correspondent.
266 OUR FRENCH CORRESPONDENT .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 266, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/50/
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