Edel Saunte specialised in family law and functioned as barrister in the Danish High Courts. She was chair of the Danish Women's Society 1936–41, and she was a member of the Social Democratic Party. When she wrote her 1951 article in the social democratic women's magazine, Frie Kvinder, cited above, two official commission reports, appearing in 1948 and 1950, had unanimously recommended the preservation of the gendered tax system. But in spite of Saunte's pointing out the irrationalities and injustices of the system, she did not argue for its total abolition. She advocated individualisation of taxes in regard to legal responsibilities, but preservation of the principle of joint taxation of spouses. The question is, why?

Joint taxation of spouses and the status of the husband as head of the household was part of the first income and capital tax law in Denmark, enacted in 1903. Moreover, a revised tax law in 1922 assigned to the married man the status of family provider – in outright contradiction to the 1925 Marriage Act, which formally equalised spouses and stated the mutual obligation of wife and husband to provide for the family.