The modern-day character and the historical status of women in Denmark has been influenced by their own involvement in women's movements and political participation in the history of Denmark.
Their mark can be seen in the fields of politics , women's suffrage , and literature , among others. The legal, civilian, and cultural status of women in prehistoric society during the Stone Age , Bronze Age , and Iron Age in Scandinavia are somewhat obscure, but Viking Age sources indicate that women were relatively free , compared to men, contemporary societies, and the later Middle Ages.
With the gradual introduction of Catholicism in Scandinavia in the early Middle Ages , women's rights were increasingly regulated and restricted. During the Middle Ages, the legal rights of women in Denmark were regulated by the county laws, the landskabslovene from the 13th-century, and therefore varied somewhat between different counties.
However, a married woman was generally under the guardianship of her spouse. The cities were regulated by the city laws. With the exception of widows, who inherited the right to the trade of her late spouse, women were not allowed membership in the guilds , which monopolized most professions in the cities.
The Civil Code of , or Christian 5. Girls were included as pupils in the first attempt of a public elementary school system in , though this attempt was not fully realized until There had been two major periods of women's movement in Denmark. The first one was from to The second was from to Line Luplau was one of the most notable women in this era.
