1937: (Publishing Rights — Chapter 2 Opening with Madeleine Sylvain at Bryn Mawr Spending Her 1937 Semester Vacation in Montreal Where the Canadian Press Ent…

1937: (Publishing Rights — Chapter 2 Opening with Madeleine Sylvain at Bryn Mawr Spending Her 1937 Semester Vacation in Montreal Where the Canadian Press Enthusiastically Followed Her, Asked About the Condition of Haitian Women She Responded “Haitian Women Do Not Have Any Rights — The Law Treats Us as If We Are Children Criminals or Insane,” Under Civil Codes Drawn from the French Napoleonic Code Women Were Considered Minors — Married Women Not Allowed to Hold Their Own Wages Purchase Property or Move Without Spousal Permission, Women Criminalized for Decisions in Familial and Sexual Partnerships Including Plasaj — Targeted by Leaders as Evidence of National Weakness and Immorality): Chapter 2, “Publishing Rights,” opens with Madeleine Sylvain at Bryn Mawr School of Social Work spending her 1937 semester vacation in Montreal, where she met with Philippe Cantave, the Haitian ambassador to Canada. The Canadian press was enthusiastic to interview her. La Presse, the leading newspaper in Montreal, followed her throughout her weeklong stay. During this time, a reporter asked her, as the editor of La Voix des Femmes, about the condition of Haitian women. She responded with a bleak assessment that was fundamentally accurate: Haitian women do not have any rights — the law treats us as if we are children, criminals, or insane. In the interwar period, Haitian women’s citizenship was dictated by civil codes drawn from the French Napoleonic Code. Under these laws, women in the twentieth century were considered minors. Married women in particular were not allowed to hold their own wages, purchase property, or move within or outside of the country without spousal permission. Socially, women were criminalized for their decisions in familial and sexual partnerships — through their parenting choices, decisions to separate from or divorce their husbands, or through plasaj, women were targeted by local and national political leaders as evidence of national weakness and immorality. The revolutionary republic that had proclaimed all its citizens Black and free still treated half its population as wards of the state — the Napoleonic Code surviving the empire that authored it, persisting as a colonial relic embedded in the constitutional DNA of the nation that had defeated colonialism itself.