Samuel van Houten was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 politician

Politics of the Netherlands

The politics of the Netherlands take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralised unitary state. The Netherlands is described as a consociational state...

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Van Houten was born in Groningen. He studied law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 at the University of Groningen

University of Groningen

The University of Groningen , located in the city of Groningen, was founded in 1614. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands as well as one of its largest. Since its inception more than 100,000 students have graduated...

, obtaining a degree in 1859. He then worked as a lawyer.

In 1869, van Houten was first elected to the House of Representatives for the electoral district Groningen, until he became a minister in 1894 in the cabinet of Joan Röell

Joan Röell

Jonkheer Joan Röell was a Dutch nobleman, lawyer, politician and statesman. He was a member of a prominent Dutch noble family which produced many public administrators and politicians....

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Van Houten introduced a law in 1874, Kinderwetje - van Houten (Children's Law), that forbade children younger than 12-year old to work as labourers in factories. It was the first social law of the Netherlands. Nonetheless, van Houten was a conservative and opposed further social laws and any egalitarianism

Egalitarianism

Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...

 by the state. On individual issues, he was progressive though, writing about feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, prostitution

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 and birth control

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

. He was president of a Neo-Malthusian

Thomas Malthus

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....

 society in 1888.

Van Houten was the founder of the short lived Liberal Party

Liberal Party (Netherlands)

The Liberal Party was a Dutch conservative liberal political party. The LP played only a marginal role in Dutch politics.-Party history:...

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