The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France
Title | The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France |
Publication Type | Book |
Year of Publication | 2004 |
Authors | Desan, Suzanne |
Number of Pages | 456 |
Publisher | University of California Press |
City | Berkeley, CA |
Abstract | In a groundbreaking book that challenges many assumptions about gender and politics in the French Revolution, Suzanne Desan offers an insightful analysis of the ways the Revolution radically redefined the family and its internal dynamics. She shows how revolutionary politics and laws brought about a social revolution within households and created space for thousands of French women and men to reimagine their most intimate relationships. Families negotiated new social practices, including divorce, the reduction of paternal authority, egalitarian inheritance for sons and daughters alike, and the granting of civil rights to illegitimate children. Contrary to arguments that claim the Revolution bound women within a domestic sphere, The Family on Trial maintains that the new civil laws and gender politics offered many women unexpected opportunities to gain power, property, or independence. The family became a political arena, a practical terrain for creating the Republic in day-to-day life. |
URL | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.04360.0001.001 |
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