TIL that in 1968, Liechtenstein held a referendum on women's suffrage where both men and women were allowed to vote. Despite this, the No-side won with 56.3% of the total and 49.5% of the women vote
Misogyny becomes so normalized and institutionalized in a culture that even women sometimes do things and vote against their own best interests. It wouldn't surprise me if there were a surprisingly high number of women who voted no.
Case in point, how many Christian conservative women vote against a women's right to chose whether to carry a child to full term?
In my experience a lot of women (especially in patriarchal societies) support the idea of gender roles. And they are more than willing to apply violence to keep dissenting women (and men) in line.
Being against own interests is an old human quirk.
How would the husband check? Voting is strictly secret punishable by law. It's next to impossible to check what your wife actually put on the ballot. For a reason...
How do you think that goes? "Hey you! Only one per booth! Oh, it's a man. Is it your husband? Oh, I see your marriage certificate. Then it's all fine." for millions of couples? Come on...
I believe the Liechtensteinian constitution only guarantees a secret ballot in parliamentary elections. It's not guaranteed that this vote also had a secret ballot (although it probably did).
I mean of course it doesn't need to be a constitutional law, that was just the most basic of Liechtensteinian law I could quickly find (and many countries have it there, e.g. France). But it's unwise to assume that the secret ballot is such a given in a voting process. Nigeria has open ballots iirc, and even the US does not technically have a system that guarantees a proper secret ballot (as mail-in votes technically don't meet the criteria).
Now that's a valid point.
But how bold to assume, the vote was lost because men forced their women to use mail-in. In reality, reasons are much more complex.
Secret ballot is not a prerequisite for a democratic process. The UK has numbered ballots allowing courts to, in exceptional circumstances, order the reveal of what someone has voted (violating the secret ballot). But we don't claim their voting process is undemocratic.
But how bold to assume, the vote was lost because men forced their women to use mail-in.
I never assumed this. I'm merely pointing out that the secret ballot is not an automatic given in a democratic election.
Actualy, if you open the link, you will see that women outnumbered the men in the election (2507 to 2228). Out of the women who voted, 50.5% voted to for, so it was pretty split. Men were closer to 40/60 for/against, leading to the loss.
In short, if only women voted for, and all men against, women would've won.