Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France

Male or Female? Gender and the Family Record in … In the early modern era, however, the head of the household – typically, the man of the house – kept the family records (livre de raison) and controlled the transmission of family memory to descendants. Domestic writing was thus a function of masculine and paternal power. Greater levels of male literacy under the Old Regime also tended to make writing men's work. Nonetheless, women did

01/09/2015 · One early expression of the need to consider the gendered politics of law can be seen in Linda K. Kerber, et al., “Beyond Roles, Beyond Separate Spheres: Thinking about Gender in the Early Republic.” 39 The intersection of the law with gender and racial formation in early America is a touchstone in Kathleen M. Brown’s influential review essays, “Brave New Worlds: Women's and Gender

how one group viewed gender differences. We must be wary of taking them too far, however, especially since part of the early modern "debate about women" was simply a rhetorical exercise. Within the last fifteen years, the rise of women's history and family history has led to new ways of exploring issues of gender. Historians of

Some examples include Julie Hardwick, "Women 'Working' the Law: Gender, Authority and Legal Process in Early Modern France," Journal of Women's History 9 (1997): 28-49; idem., "Seeking Separations: Gender, Marriages and Household Economies in Early Modern France," French Historical Studies 31 (1998): 157-80; Jeremy Hayhoe, "Illegitimacy, Inter-Generational Conflict and Legal Practice in

The essays in Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France explore how ordinary men and women negotiated power within early modern French households and continually reinvented their families in response to external forces. Larger processes, such as state building, religious reform, changing understandings of gender roles, and economic developments, influenced family practices in the areas … Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France – …