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The 1870s were dominated by strict Victorian social codes and laws that severely restricted the rights of all women, and married women in particular. Governments throughout Europe used the Napoleonic Code, which prevented women from engaging in financial transactions. Many women who conducted their own business or earned their own wages chose not to marry because the laws regarding what married women could do when it came to finances were so limiting. By the beginning of the 20th century, things were beginning to change as the female suffrage movement swept over Europe and the world and women were awarded rights such as the right to own property and the right to vote. However, for most people in the late 1870s, such eventualities were not yet even a distant dream.