Contents of The Code
The preliminary article of the Code established certain important provisions regarding the rule of law. Laws could be applied only if they had been duly promulgated, and then only if they had been published officially (including provisions for publishing delays, given the means of communication available at the time). Thus, no secret laws were authorized. It prohibited ex post facto laws (i.e. laws that apply to events that occurred before their introduction). The code also prohibited judges from refusing justice on grounds of insufficiency of the law, and therefore, encouraging them to interpret the law. On the other hand, it prohibited judges from passing general judgments of a legislative value (see above).
With regard to family, the Code established the supremacy of the man over the wife and children - this was the general legal situation in Europe at the time. A woman was given the same rights as a minor. Divorce by mutual consent was actually abolished for women in 1804, a backward step.
Read more about this topic: Napoleonic Code
Famous quotes containing the words contents of the, contents of, contents and/or code:
“Yet to speak of the whole world as metaphor
Is still to stick to the contents of the mind
And the desire to believe in a metaphor.
It is to stick to the nicer knowledge of
Belief, that what it believes in is not true.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Conversation ... is like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayed in it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“If one reads a newspaper only for information, one does not learn the truth, not even the truth about the paper. The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves; and more than that, it is an instigator.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“Many people will say to working mothers, in effect, “I don’t think you can have it all.” The phrase for “have it all” is code for “have your cake and eat it too.” What these people really mean is that achievement in the workplace has always come at a price—usually a significant personal price; conversely, women who stayed home with their children were seen as having sacrificed a great deal of their own ambition for their families.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)