The feminist movement in Norway has made significant progress in reforming laws and social customs in the nation, advancing the rights of the women of Norway.
1840s: First wave of feminism
In 1840, Norwegian women's status was considered as incapable meaning it was impossible to enter into any agreement, debts, or even control their own money. They were not entitled to any training or able to be considered for any government job. As for single women, of which there were many during the era, they could request to be placed into employment under the authority of a guardian. On their wedding day, married women transitioned from living under the authority of their fathers to under that of their husbands
During the reign of Magnus VI Lagabøter (1263–1280), the age of majority was set at twenty years for both sexes. Norwegian law changed later during the reign of Christian V (1670–1699). His regime issued the Law in Norway (1687) which, following the Danish rules of that time, defined unmarried women as minors.
However, in 1845, a first step towards women's emancipation was taken with the "Law on the vast majority for single women", for which women's majority was set to age 25 at which point a woman would no longer need a legal guardian.
In the first part of the 19th century, women worked in the early textile mills (1840) and in the tobacco factories, which were reserved for their employment. They also worked in the food industries and jobs requiring "little hands", but they did not work in heavy industry.
The literature marketed to women of the time was still a reflection of society's value system: only the quest for a husband was to be found in these novels. Among the women writers published in Norway during the era were Hanna Winsnes, Marie Wexelsen and Anna Magdalene Thoresen.
1854 to 1879: Awakening consciousness
During this period, new laws were passed, and although they did not at once revolutionize the status of women, barriers were being crossed regularly and rapidly. Formal equality of women with men became almost complete in the space of just two generations. In 1854 the law on royal succession granting full equal inheritance for both sexes was passed after heated debate and resistance. (Prior to this a woman's inheritance was limited to joint rule.)
In 1863, a new law was passed on the age of majority that succeeded that of 1845: women attained the age of majority at 25 years, as well as men. As for widows, divorced and separated, they become major "regardless of age". In 1869, the age of majority was reduced to 21, although not without some wondering whether it was defensible for women. The committee of law, believing that women matured more rapidly than men, stated that this age is very suitable for her. In 1866, a law was passed establishing free enterprise (except for married women) so that anyone could obtain a license in their city.
But it is mainly through literature that women expressed themselves. Camilla Collett is the first writer who went outside the bounds which had been established for women's literature up until that time, and whose most famous novel, The Daughters of the Prefect (1855), deals with the education of bourgeois women in the 19th century. The central theme of this novel is the conflict between the standard conventions of society and the feelings and needs of the individual. Also, Aasta Hansteen served as a passionate voice of the feminist cause, and whose colorful persona served as a model for the character of Lona Hessel in Henrik Ibsen's The Pillars of Society (1877).
The second wave of feminism (1879–1890)
The writers who took up the case for women would claim Camilla Collett as their inspiration, and thus created the first wave of feminism in Norway.
The role of literature
In 1871, Georg Brandes initiated the movement of The Modern Breakthrough: he asked that literature serve progress and not reactionary views. It was then that Norway had the writers who became known as the "Big Four", namely Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland and Jonas Lie. All would speak for the cause of women. Camilla Collett and Aasta Hansteen wrote to defend the cause of feminist theories that were an integral parity of a larger program for the authors of the Modern Breakthrough. For the latter, it will be to defend the oppressed people against the social expectations of the time, of which the wife was one: women who received a primary education whose sole purpose was marriage, women who were unable to continue to fully enjoy intellectual lives, who could not freely dispose of their own life and body.