" Restritamente, é Claro": The Women's Vote Being Debated in the 1911 Constituent Assembly

Abstract

The majority of republicans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries recognised the need to give equal rights to women. However, they also considered that such a state of equality could and should only be achieved after a progressive process of women's liberation from the moral, civil and religious obscurantism into which they had been plunged by the dictates of monarchic, conservative, religious and anthropocentric societies. The right to vote was not considered a priority, nor should it, in the dominant idiosyncrasies of early republicanism, be granted without "restrictions". The precedence of civil rights, on the one hand, or the association of a certain labour or economic status on the other, such as exercising a liberal profession or paying taxes, was advocated.