This study focuses on the poor regulation in year 1871 and 1918, in Sweden. By examining the regulation texts with help by Carol Bacchis method the study is easy to overview. With theories about gender, class and citizenship as the theoretical framework the study provides an analysis that the gender equality was poor and in booth class topics and the citizenship topics the equality and the love for the week and poor, subtle.             The empirical data illustrate that the law text speaks directly to the man, and thereby leaves the women out of the text, naming her only by the word ”wife” and once as women in the 1871 regulation. The gender equality was low and the man hade all the official power. The citizenship ideal was a hard working and sober man that took good care of himself hand his family. If the man did not succeed in this, his citizenship was not fulfilled. If you received money by the state as a poor subsidy, you lost your right to vote in national elections. This, and the fact that, if you hade family with money, they should take care of you instead of the state, by law, increased the class society.                      The synthesis argues that the thoughts about the less fortunate is not so very different, then as of today.