Human Right

The oldest mixed gender Masonic organisation is shortly known as “Le Droit Humain”, “the human right”. The full name is “Ordre Maçonnique Mixte Internationale Le Droit Humain”, but also this was not always the case.

I was paging through a Dutch book about the history of the Dutch federation and my eye fell on this quote (which I translated for you):

When the Mixed Order had grown, a Grand Lodge was formed named: Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise Mixte, and the motto: “Le Droit Humain” to distinguish itself from the “Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise” (1879), which had at motto: “Les Droits de l’Homme”.

These human right(s) were initially the motto rather than the name of the organisation. That other symbolic Scottish Grand Lodge was also founded with the help of Georges Martin, but he couldn’t get it to initiate women.

“l’Homme” like the English “man” can mean both “man” and “human”. “Les Droits de l’Homme” is translated to “human rights”, but maybe Martin and company found “l’Homme” sound too manly.

Be that as it may, for some reason Martin also chose singular human right rather than the more general description “human rights“. Let’s see if I can found out how that came about.

On 11 May 1901 the name was changed from “Grande Loge Symbolique Ecossaise Mixte” to “Ordre Maçonnique Mixte Internationale Le Droit Humain”.