GRAND LODGE WOMEN OF GREECE

• Born: 1828, France
• Died: 1894, France
• Maria Deraismes was born into an educated bourgeois family and received an education that was highly unusual for a woman of her time, including studies in literature, history, and the theatre. From an early age, she distinguished herself as a writer, public speaker, and social activist. She devoted her life to women’s rights, the education of girls, and social justice. In 1870, together with Léon Richer, she co-founded the first French organization dedicated to women’s rights, the Association pour le Droit des Femmes.
• On 14 January 1882, Deraismes was initiated into the Lodge Les Libres Penseurs (“The Free Thinkers”) at Le Pecq, near Paris. She thus became the first woman to be admitted into a regular male Masonic Lodge. Her initiation was politically and socially radical, founded on the conviction that Freemasonry must be open to both men and women with equal rights, not as an exception but as a fundamental principle. This decision provoked intense reactions, and the Lodge subsequently withdrew from its then Masonic jurisdiction, marking a clear rupture with traditional Masonic structures.
• Eleven years after her initiation, on 4 April 1893, together with Georges Martin and other Freemasons, she founded the first mixed Masonic Lodge in France, Le Droit Humain, admitting men and women as equal members. This Lodge laid the foundations of Co-Freemasonry (Mixed Freemasonry), establishing full equality in access to Masonic initiation regardless of gender. Through Le Droit Humain, Deraismes engaged in Masonic work guided by humanistic ideals, equality, freedom of conscience, and equal participation, thereby expanding Freemasonry into new social horizons.
• Deraismes did not regard initiation as a merely formal act but as a political and ethical commitment. She believed that equality within Freemasonry must reflect equality within society itself. Through Freemasonry, she sought to bring together individuals of different genders, social backgrounds, and religious beliefs, united by shared humanistic values—an inclusive vision that transcended narrow political boundaries.
• Her insistence on the full inclusion of women within Freemasonry, not in separate or auxiliary Lodges but as equal members, laid the groundwork for modern international Co-Freemasonry.
• Maria Deraismes died in 1894. Despite her relatively early death, her work endured through Le Droit Humain, an international Masonic Order that continues to operate today, with male and female members in more than forty countries. In Masonic memory, she is regarded as the “mother of Co-Freemasonry,” symbolizing both a profound and a practical transition into a new era defined by equality, fraternity, freedom, and human rights.
• Maria Deraismes stands as a pivotal figure in the history of Freemasonry—not simply as one among many, but as the first woman to enter a male Lodge through full ritual initiation, and as the founder of the first mixed Masonic Order. Her life and legacy uniquely combine social feminism, the struggle for equality, and Masonic innovation.

 Maria Deraismes (Marie‑Adélaïde Deraismes)

1. References
2. Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) – Στοιχεία βιογραφίας και φωτογραφίες
   https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/429724bc-541a-45a9-9a0a-562e2ec4cf01-maria-deraismes-1828-1894
3. Le Droit Humain (Lodge LOA) – Ιστορία και ιδρύματα
   https://www.lodgeloa.org/le-droit-humain
4. Freemasonry for Men and Women – Origins of Co‑Freemasonry
   https://www.freemasonryformenandwomen.org/origins.html
5. H-France Review – Maria Deraismes & Feminist Freemasonry
   https://h-france.net/vol22reviews/vol22_no210_Jacob.pdf
6. Universal Freemasonry – Famous Freemasons: Maria Deraismes
   https://www.universalfreemasonry.org/en/famous-freemasons/maria-deraismes
7. Freemasonry Blog – Of Their Free Will and Accord (Maria Deraismes)
   https://blog.freemason.org/2019/06/03/of-their-free-will-and-accord/
8. Mariederaismes Lodge 352 (Paris) – Official Lodge Page
   https://www.mariederaismeslodge352.com/our-lodge.html