​​​This study examines social modernization in 1930s to mid-1950s Tunisia through three seminal documents: social thinker Tahar Haddad's Our Woman in Sharia and Society, Sheikh Mohamed Abdelaziz Djaït's Draft Code of Sharia Rulings, and the Code of Personal Status, which entered into force shortly after the 1956 independence. These documents reflect the social and political struggle surrounding family matters. The study examines their reception considering each actor's interests, treating these documents as forms of historical writing that reflect rational action with a meaningful goal, drawing upon social action as theorized in Weberian epistemology. The study concludes that the social modernization in Tunisia, particularly the family, was a contested and historically complex process shaped by competing conceptions of identity; on the one hand, those committed to the traditional family model and the hierarchical ordering of gender roles; and on the other, those advocating family reform and adaptation to the contemporary era in the name of modernity. Consequently, this study contributes to a more precise understanding of the historical circumstances surrounding the early establishment of women's and family rights in Tunisia.