husband. The latter has the right to annul a contract which may have been concluded without his consent ». 440. The same law also repealed the second paragraph of Article 1481 which stipulated that « the surety of the married woman is only worth one third of his assets if the husband has authorized her to contract a longer contract. The husband’s authorization does not carry any guarantee if the contrary is not expressed ». This law also repealed the second paragraph of Article 1524 which proclaimed that « the woman cannot stand as security for appearance without the agreement of her husband. In retrospect, the latter can no longer stand as security, except on contrary stipulation ». This new legislation came to reinforce the principle of gender equality in rights and responsibilities, without order of precedence. 441. Law n° 2005-80 of 9th August 2005, amending some provisions of the Obligations and Contracts Code, amended Articles 1138 and 1158 of the COC which contained discriminatory provisions due to the fact that the only case of mandate provided for was that of the husband as representative of his wife, which implicitely denied the wife the right to represent her husband. In this context, Article 1158 (new) recognizes for the woman the status of representative of her husband by stipulating that « the divorce will put an end to the mandate given by one of the spouses to the other ». 442. In order to better strengthen gender equality, the amendment of the law n° 93-62 of 23rd June 1993, made to Article 12 of the Tunisian Nationality Code, granted the Tunisian woman the possibility of handing down her nationality to her children born outside of Tunisian territory of a foreign father and this, by virtue of a simple joint written declaration by the two parents and so long as the children have not reached the age of 19, at which age the legislator gives them the possibility of personally expressing their position with regard to the nationality they wish to adopt. 443. The Tunisian Nationality Code, anended by virtue of the law n° 2002-4 of 21st January 2002, amending Article 12 of the Code, specified that « in case of the death of the father, of his disappearance or his legal incapacity, the mother’s unilateral declaration suffices ». 444. Reinforcing the principle of equality in this matter, the amendment of the Constitution, carried out under the terms of the Constitutional law n° 97-65 of the 27th October 1997, amending and completing certain Articles of the Constitution, places on the same equal footing the filiation by the father and by the mother in recognizing the right of candidature to the deputation to any Tunisian born of a Tunisian father or Tunisian mother without discrimination. 445. In the area of the law on succession, the Tunisian legislator has made some progress in sanctioning gender equality. There is need to point out that the Tunisian woman’s right to succession has been significantly improved thanks to the putting in place of several legislative mechanisms such as the reversion mechanism which grants the girls the benefit of the entire estate if she is the sole heiress. 95