Where Is Poland? | Double Struggle

Chapter 6

Double Struggle

During the decades while Poland was under foreign partition, women had to wage war on two fronts: both to preserve the national identity and for their own emancipation. The legislation was oppressive towards women. At the threshold of the twentieth century, women had no votingrights in any of the three partitions.

Artur Grottger, 'VIII. Mournful Tidings', from the series 'Polonia', 1863. Source: National Museum in Warsaw

Kinder, Küche, Kirche?

Women living under all the partitions were wholly dependent on their husbands: they needed the latter’s permission to take on any kind of professional work or to manage their own estate, and they couldn’t decide about their children’s futures after their husband’s death.
In Germany, women were governed by the principle Kinder, Küche, Kirche ('children, kitchen, church'), while in Tsarist Russia women were essentially the property of their husbands or fathers. Congress Poland, the Russian-held partition, operated under the Napoleonic Code, which established the supremacy of a man over his wife and children. For example, a wife could only be granted a divorce if her husband kept a mistress in their marital home; women remained under the control of their nearest male relative or husband throughout their lives and could not manage their own or marital property; husbands were in charge of raising children. One of the greatest poets of the era, Maria Konopnicka, required her husband’s permission to travel abroad even long after the couple were separated; this was because in Russia women couldn’t hold their own passports and were only listed in their husbands’ documents. In Galicia, women were prohibited from joining political associations.

A postcard by 'Ster' magazine, arguing that 'a popular vote is only when women can vote too', 1910.. Photo: Polona.pl

Fighting for equality

Voting rights were one of the key demands pursued by the Polish suffragists. In what was possibly the greatest stunt of the era, the artist and activist Maria Dulębianka put herself forward as a candidate for election to the Sejm in Galicia in 1908. She won over four hundred votes (all from men, for obvious reasons) which was a great result, but her candidacy was rejected 'due to a formal irregularity'.

Women’s groups were often accused of concerning themselves with 'trivialities', such as equal rights, at a time when the entire nation was under foreign partition. Maria Dulębianka herself had said 'We should not waste time on women’s rights when it is time to fight for the nation.' Very poignantly, she asked:

Do women stand outside of their nation?

To avoid such accusations, women’s groups stressed their patriotism and their commitment to the Polish cause. Some feminists even placed independence at the forefront, assuming that equal rights would arrive together with a free Poland. Cecylia Walewska, a women’s rights activist during the era of partitions, wrote in her book Nasze bojownice [Our Women Fighters] (1935):

Behind them extended a clearly etched trail – not just a struggle for equal rights, but also for that which is the most sacred, the closest to our hearts: the struggle for the soul of the Polish nation, snatched from us by the greedy hands of the partitioners. The story of the struggle of our women fighters is about the rhythm, power, tension, the sheer elemental force of this most societal fight. It is the work of individuals for whom the overall goals surpass any personal aims and desires. The idea of women’s liberation is so closely linked with the goal of national liberation, with the flame of the deepest patriotism, the greatest sacrifices for the good of the homeland, always carrying a torch in the darkness, that frequently, perhaps always, the main slogans serve as a protective cover for other, forbidden ones.