The author deals with the history of the development of the family law part of the BGB and the contemporary criticism of the draft legislation, especially by the women’s rights
movement before 1900. Selected provisions from the draft legislation and the original version o the BGB are contrasted with the legal policy criticism published in the run-up to the enactment of the BGB regarding the discrimination of wives, illegitimate children, and their mothers. It is true that the demands of the women’s rights movement, which were very precise in legal terms, could
no longer influence the BGB legislative process before enacting the codification in 1900. However, a very late success of the women’s rights movement operating by the end of the 19th century wa that its demands to change the BGB family law were largely fulfilled a hundred years later up to the end of the 20th century.