Guardianship in Francoist Spain (1939-1975) and the democratic transition (1975-1985) was a system which provided husbands and fathers with tremendous legal control over women.
This made women dependents of their husbands and fathers with men controlling not only the custody of their children, but their bank accounts, contracts, nationality and residency.
Before 1963, husbands and fathers who killed their wives and daughters whom they discovered committing adultery or having sex outside marriage incurred only the symbolic punishment of destierro.
They included the relinquishment of controls over nationality, children's custody and inheritance, while men no longer automatically became the default head of household.
A new family law was enacted in 1981, giving married women full civil rights, and legalizing divorce.
[6] Fuero del Trabajo of 1938 was the law which prevented married women from working in workshops or factories.
[6] The Labor Regulation Act of 1942 said women had to sign a voluntary dismissal form within a month of being married that resulted in them losing their job.
[5] In Barcelona during the 1940s, women had to be accompanied by men such as fathers, brothers or husbands if they wanted to be out on the street at night; they could not go out unaccompanied.
[12][13] The law also stated under Article 428 that parents could kill their daughter if she was 22 years old or younger, and they caught her having sex with a man.
Husbands and parents were still punished under the law for these killings, but the consequences were small and mostly included only a man being forced to leave his home and live at least 25 kilometers away for a few years.
The code specified, "The husband who, if his wife is caught in adultery and he kills the woman or the adulterer on the spot or causes them one of the serious injuries, will be punished with banishment.
These rules are applicable to parents in the same circumstances, with respect to their daughters under twenty-three years of age and their corruptors, as long as they have been living in their father's house.
[4] Prostitutes were held at facilities run by nuns through Patronato de Protección a la Mujer from 1941 to 1985.
These changes were a result of pressure by women to bring the law more in line with cultural shifts in attitudes.
One reform meant that women could retain custody of their children if they were widowed and remarried, but only if the deceased husband specified this in his will.
Another reform of the 1958 law meant that for the first time a husband could not sell or alienate marital property without his wife's consent.
[9] Mercedes Formica, a member of Falange, was one of the major supporters of the 1958 Civil Code reforms reducing the restrictions placed on married Spanish women.
This amendment to the law gave women in the workforce additional rights, recognizing the importance of their work.
The law saw single women being entitled to a salary similar to that of her male peers working in the same job.
Pilar Primo de Rivera commented, "The law rather than being feminist is, on the contrary, supportive of what men can give to women as the emptier glass.
Why else would we want the man's salary to be sufficiently remunerative so that women, especially married woman, would not have to work out of necessity!
But there are many families not just in Spain but around the world that cannot dispense with working women, precisely because it ensures there is enough for their children's care and education, the primary goal of marriage.
[7] The blood revenge law was rescinded in 1963, with husbands and parents no longer having the right to kill wives or daughters caught engaging in illicit sex acts.
It was primarily from the Peña Grande maternity prison that the stolen babies were taken, with women continuing to be imprisoned there until 1984.
The conditions at the state facility were so bad that girls would commit suicide by jumping off the top stairwell.
"[22] Article 63 removed the requirement that a wife obey her husband, and was amended to specify that both spouses had a mutual obligation to respect and protect each other.
Despite many of the changes brought about during the transition, there was no way of establishing the number of women who were killed by their partners or husbands before the 1990s.
The abuse and murder of women in Spain by their partners was a form of sexist terrorism and claimed more victims than ETA.
While the permiso marital was abolished in 1975, and adultery was decriminalized in 1978, it was only through Law 11/1981 that men and women became equal in marriage, removing the remaining discriminatory provisions, and also legalizing divorce.