Woman Suffrage
Woman Suffrage
Introduction to Woman Suffrage
Woman Suffrage, right of women to share on equal terms with men the political privileges afforded by representative government and, more particularly, to vote in elections and referendums and to hold public office. Equal political rights for women have been advocated since antiquity. Under the autocratic forms of government that prevailed in ancient times and under the feudal regimes of the Middle Ages, however, suffrage was so restricted, even among men, that enfranchisement of women never attained the status of a major political issue. Conditions warranted organized woman-suffrage movements only after suffrage had been won by large, formerly disfranchised groups of the male population as a consequence of the democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.” (1)