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French Civil Code, 1804
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the “Napoleonic Code.” The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family, and individual rights.
In 1800, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new dictator of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system. He established a special commission, led by J.J. Cambaceres, which met more than 80 times to discuss the revolutionary legal revisions, and Napoleon presided over nearly half of these sessions. In March 1804, the Napoleonic Code was finally approved.
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family.
Article 1540. The dowry, under this regulation as under that of cap.2, is the property which the wife brings to her husband in support of the charges of marriage
Article 1544. If the father and mother settle a dowry conjointly, without distinguishing the share of each, it shall be taken to be settled by equal portions. If the dowry be settled by the father only in respect both of paternal and maternal rights, the mother through present at the contract, shall not be bound, and the dowry remains entirely at the charge of the father.
Article 1549. The husband alone has the management of the property in dowry, during the marriage….Nevertheless it may be agreed, by the marriage-contract, that the wife shall receive annually, on her single acquittance, a part of her revenues for her maintenance and personal wants.
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