The Gauls
Celtic societies



Higher status of women then in other
societies in Antiquity
Women went to battle
Sources
 Irish mythology
 Writers: Tacitus, Amnianus Marcellinus
 Archaeology

The Princess of Vix, c. 530 BC
Crater
Torc
The Romans
A patriarchal society
Pater familias


Head of an extended family
Controlled his wife, his sons and
daughters, his sons’ wives and children,
his slaves and property
Women: wives and mothers
The Franks
Salic Law



Law of the Salian Franks
Women could not inherit land
Interpreted as meaning that women
could not accede to the throne of France
Frankish Homeland
The Middle Ages
The Church


Misogyny of Medieval Churchmen
Woman: a temptress, an associate of the
devil
Woman as chattel
Unequal laws

Adultery
The XVIth century
1559 Marguerite de Navarre
The Heptameron


A highly educated woman
Advocates reciprocity in marriage
The XVIIth century
The Précieuses


Madame de Rambouillet
Mademoiselle de Scudéry
Madame de Maintenon

Saint-Cyr
The XVIIIth century
1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Émile

Advocates respect of “natural hierarchy”
 Women’s submission to men
 Precedence of motherhood
1783 Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
De l’éducation des femmes

Warns against excess of knowledge
The 1789 Revolution
August 26, 1789
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen


“Men are born free and equal in rights”
“Men” only include the male gender
1791 Olympe de Gouges: Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen

1793 arrested for “having forgotten the virtues
belonging to her sex”, later executed
The Convention (1792-95)
and women
Classified as non-citizens together with
children, the insane, minors and
prisoners
Forbidden from attending political
assemblies
Divorce on grounds of incompatibility or
mutual consent

Not necessarily a gain for women
Nineteenth Century
First Empire 1804-1814
Napoleon Bonaparte

1804 Napoleonic Code
 Civil Law
Napoleonic Code
Patriarchal family
Head of the family: man



Controls wife’s property, even wages or
profits
Could contest wife’s right to take a job if
judged “against the interests of the family”
Chooses family domicile
Napoleonic Code (2)
Women’s civil status reduced

Could not act as a witness in court or even
in birth, marriage and death
Children “belonged” to the father
Napoleonic Code (3)
Inequality in law regarding adultery


Man punished only if he maintained a
mistress in the family home
Woman could be imprisoned or even killed
with impunity if caught in the act
Napoleonic Code (4)
A separated woman could not sell her
property without her husband’s
permission
If a widow remarried a family council
decided if she kept her children or not
1810 Abortion became a crime
Restoration and July
Monarchy
1815-1830 Restoration

1816 Divorce abolished
1830-1848: July monarchy

1833 Guizot Law organizing primary
education did not include girls
Second Republic and
Second Empire
1848-52 Second Republic


Communities with a population of 800 were
required to have a girls’ schools
Difficulties because of lack of qualified
teachers
1852-70 Second Empire

50 girls’ secondary schools established but
most did not last
The Third Republic:
education
Free, open to all social classes
1880 Camille Sée Law
 Organization of Girls secondary schools
 Yet girls did not receive State baccalauréat
1880 Girls allowed to attend lectures at
the Sorbonne
1924 Girls and boys programmes in
secondary schools made the same
The Third Republic
1881, 1895

Women could open their own post-savings
account and withdraw money without
permission
1884 Divorce reintroduced

Grounds of cruelty admissible
1907 Could control their own salary
The Third Republic
1917 Women could be guardians of
children
1938 Women achieved legal capacity

Clause of obedience to the husband in the
Civil Code removed
Yet husband could still object to his
wife’s working
The right to vote
No success under the Third Republic


Women movement more moderate than in
England
Both Right and Left against it
 Catholics: traditional view of women
 Fear of Church influence on women

Stereotype of femininity
The right to vote (2)
21 April 1944 Decree of Charles de
Gaulle’s provisional government


Women enfranchised because of their good
deeds during the war
Could also stand for political office
Yet Napoleonic code still in effect
Simone de Beauvoir
1949 The Second Sex



A survey of women’s role though history
A sociological study
A new analysis
 “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”

Not immediately influential in France
Contraception and
abortion
July 31, 1920

Propaganda in favour of female
contraception forbidden
1923

Heavy penalties instated for performing
and having abortions
After 1968
More radical feminism

MLF Mouvement de Libération de la Femme
1974

Abortion legalized (contraception in 1967)
Phasing out of single-sex schools and
different examinations according to sex
1986

Right for married women to administer their own
assets
Parity in the 1990’s
Concern: lack of involvement of French
women in politics

Political parties shown to function as men’s
clubs
1995

Equal Opportunity Monitoring Unit
 Function: to implement parity
Parity (2)
1999 Revision of the Constitution
Creation of laws obliging political parties
to present as many women as men
during elections
 Parties that do not present 50% women have
their funding cut
 Party organizations in communities of more
than 3500 h. must present parity lists