the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal and the law faculties and also caused a lot of discussion among scholars and debaters. The strong opposition to the drafts, in particular articulated by the judiciary, contributed to preventing them from becoming law. But the underlying political and legal issues were not removed from the agenda.Although Sweden never got a great Civil Code, several central ideas for the 1826draft came to be implemented by legislation in a series of partial changes starting in the early 1840s. In 1845, equal inheritance rights for men and women were established, a reform which indirectly threatened the estate society in general and the privileged position of the nobility in particular.167The birthright of hereditary property was abolished in the cities in 1857 and in rural areas in 1863.The age of majority for unmarried women was gradually introduced during roughly the same period.168 Several of the master’s remedies for controlling and correcting his subordinates, which had been farreaching since medieval times, were restricted or abolished within a few decades. Some examples of these changes concerned the right of a farmer himself to capture a tenant who had run away before the end of the time agreed upon (1845),169 the master’s right to chastise his adult servants (1858)170 and the husband’s right to chastise his wife (1864). It can also be mentioned that flogging as a punishment to a criminal offence was abolished in 1855.171 Freedom of trade was created by a statute in1846 that abolished the guild system and entitled Swedish men, and, in some cases, women, to run a factory or an artisan enterprise.172 Some professions still were regulated in detail but the scrutiny was transferred from the private guilds to public authorities. Employer and c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 83 167 Peterson, C1982, p. 147. 168 Inger 1997, pp. 199-200, 207; Hafström1974, pp. 104-107. 169 SFS 1845:11, section 2. This right concerned agricultural tenancy (Sw. landbolega) and was regulated in the Book of Land Law (Jordabalken) in the Code of 1734, see above part II. Schrevelius 1857, p. 530; Adlercreutz,T, 1971, p. 131. 170 SFS 1858:84; Pleijel 1961, pp. 193-216. 171 SFS 1855:61. Nelson 1988, p. 76. 172 SFS 1846:39.
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