Unlike her other works, she labeled this one a Sketch of from Real Life: she concluded it with an appendix recounting actual Swedish court cases concerning her subject,[1] an assault on the 2nd-class status of women under Sweden's 1734 Civil Code.

By its terms, unmarried adult women (unless widowed or divorced) were considered incompetent wards of their male relatives.

Bremer and her sister had themselves been required to petition King Charles XIV to emancipate themselves from their wastrel brother.

[2] Although Bremer herself soon left for a great journey through Europe and the Levant, her work prompted the Hertha Discussion (Herthadiskussionen) throughout Swedish society, reaching Parliament in 1858.

Upon her return to Sweden, Bremer expressed her satisfaction with these changes and took a personal interest in the Seminary and its students.