World Notes Switzerland

FROM MALE DOMINATION TO EQUAL PARTNERSHIP! So read a headline last week in the Geneva daily La Suisse, hailing the result of a national referendum on equal marriage rights for women. The vote in favor, however, was a less-than- overwhelming 54.7%. Sexual equality has come late to Switzerland, which adopted women's suffrage at the federal level only 14 years ago and an equal rights amendment a decade later. Still on the books until last week were laws enshrining the husband's right to choose his family's place of residence, prevent his wife from working, and manage her private finances, including any inheritance.

Conservatives fought the referendum as "antifamily" and "antimarriage." One opponent warned on television that should the marriage-rights measure become law, "the courts would be swamped with harrowing divorce proceedings." The status quo was backed by a majority of voters in twelve of the country's 26 cantons, including rural Appenzell, where women are still denied the right to vote on local issues. Among disappointed supporters of the old order was a Roman Catholic priest from Lucerne, who complained, "It all proves that old family virtues no longer count."