The role of European private law in rendering women's participation to public space effective

During the last centuries, women’s political rights in Europe have been at the core of a wide debate and found their recognition in constitutional texts that were introduced, with different times and methods, in all European countries. Nonetheless, women’s participation in the public space does not depend solely on the formal recognition of political rights in constitutional texts, but also from the role of private law in shaping women’s status in society. There has always been a biunivocal relationship between private law rules concerning the status of women and the reforms that introduced female suffrage and the equality principle at constitutional level. On the one side, private law was able to uphold “gendered rules of conduct” – even after the introduction of political rights in the constitution – that were challenged, and eventually changed, by the legislative branch, by the courts, and by legal doctrines that adapted the law to new social demands. On the other side, private law has a potential to render the fight against women’s discrimination mainstreaming, like in the questions concerning matters related to the patrimonial consequences of divorce, the right to maintain the maiden name, or – finally – in the case concerning mothers’ rights in establishing relationships by descent and the legal consequences thereof, including the passing on of the mother’s surname to her children.