Matrimonial Property System: Historical Context Surrounding the Enactment of the Law 28 of 1932

This paper summarizes the results of a research about the reconstruction of the historical context where the Law 28 of 1932, which reformed the rules about matrimonial property system, was enactment. Before this reform, Colombian married women were legally incompetent, meaning that they were treated like children or insane people, having no faculty to make legal acts such as signing a contract. With the reform of 1932, married women obtained completely legal capacity in the same conditions of their husbands and adult single women. Through a revision and analysis of primary sources such as The Annals of Senate and the House of Representative of The Congress of Colombia from 1930 to 1932, and the newspaper of the same period, it was established the favorable political position of the Government of President Enrique Olaya Herrera about the recognition of married women civil and economics rights, as they were already recognized, at that time, to other married women in different European and Latin American countries like Italy, German, French and Ecuador, among many others. Also, it was established the female participation in Congress debates, which was driven by the activism of some women in the streets who were demanding the recognition of their civil rights. Finally, it was founded that the reform of the law number 28 of 1932, which only has 10 articles, was part of the biggest political project of President Olaya Herrera who pretended to push Colombia to what he named a “more modern society”.