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‘Sharpening the wooden sword’ in Imperial Germany: marital status and education in the work of Helene Lange

Abstract This article addresses the views of Helene Lange (1848-1930) in the campaign to reform German female education during the imperial period (1871-1918). A former educator, Lange was a key leader in national discussions of both female education and women's rights. Education, middle-class interests, and marital status formed the pillars of Lange's reformist vision. Lange contended that nineteenth-century education was misguided in its emphasis upon marriage as the primary goal of middle-class female lives. She cited a perceived surplus of unmarried women (Frauenüberschuss) as a key reason to change the nature of female education. Lange saw this surfeit as particularly problematic among the middle and elite classes. In doing so, she acknowledged derogatory depictions of unwed women but inverted such stereotypes in order to promote her cause of improved female education. As a solution for the perceived female surplus, Lange advocated educational and professional experiences that would embrace the maternal character of women. Helene Lange believed that women were not to be educated to compete with men, but to stand beside them in creating a better world – patriarch and matriarch renewed.