‘Culture wars’ can matter deeply
During the French Revolution, women's progress became a potent culture war issue, leading to new constraints.
Trans rights, trad wives, and a testosterone-fueled military: these hot-button topics generate intense emotions in online spaces and cable-news panels, driving the culture wars that energize MAGA warriors. Culture wars focused on gender issues have been especially heated during the Trump era, but they are not new. Indeed, gender-based culture wars have long been a feature of democratic systems, particularly during times of political upheaval.
Consider the example of France in the 1790s. The French Revolution of 1789 led to a change of government from one ruled by an absolutist monarch to one where (some) men could vote for their governing bodies. With the introduction of a new electoral system in 1791, suffrage and regular elections became part of the system and ambitious politicians needed constituents to vote for them.
Rapid political and social change, including the debate over who qualified as citizens with the right to vote, generated both movements for change and a sense of impending disorder. Urban workers and peasants demanded the vote, as did some women. Dissatisfaction with the government’s response led to increasing violence, including riots and the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792. The constitution that came into effect in June 1793 — after the creation of the French First Republic and the execution of King Louis XVI — granted universal male suffrage, including for workers and peasants. But it refused the same political rights to women.
Still, representative government brought legal changes that benefited women. In the fall of 1792, the National Convention legalized and made divorce quite easy, a change vehemently opposed by church authorities. In the years that followed, more women than men sued for divorce under the new laws, reflecting their desire for greater autonomy. At the same time, adjustments to inheritance laws made it possible for women to demand a fair share of their family’s material goods, in many cases interfering with previous settlements that had disproportionately favored sons over daughters.
While many French men and women approved of these transformations as promoting greater fairness, those disadvantaged by the changes expressed their outrage at the disruption to longtime religious and economic practices anchored in traditional ideas about gender. Conservatives were especially unhappy about restrictions on the ability of husbands to discipline a wayward wife or of fathers to direct the family’s resources toward an eldest son. His diminished patriarchal authority had profound implications for familial relations.
Uneasiness about these cultural shifts intensified as war broke out in 1792, followed by civil war within France itself, triggered by resistance to what many saw as unacceptable attacks on their way of life. Opposition to the revolutionary government was particularly strong in western France, where religious sentiment and an attachment to the king and traditional hierarchies fueled resistance to government “meddling.”
The Terror — an effort by the radical Jacobin government, with the support of the newly empowered lower classes, to clamp down on dissent by executing anyone perceived as a threat to the unity of the nation — was an attempt to impose order. But it instead created panic and paranoia along with a sense that giving power to the lower classes and women gave rise to chaos. The closure of women’s political groups along with the execution of several prominent women, including political activist Olympe de Gouges and the former queen Marie Antoinette, in the fall of 1793 was a response to those fears. The Terror’s end, with the execution of Maximilien Robespierre and his closest collaborators in July 1794, led to the creation of a new regime that promised to restore order: the Directory, a conservative republican government established by a new constitution in 1795.
But the culture wars continued, fueled by fights over gender and family issues. While the new constitution significantly curtailed the power of lower-class men — the franchise was restricted to wealthy male property owners — many legislators were still committed to the egalitarian goals of the revolution and thus unwilling to overturn all previous social legislation. However, the visibility and perceived political and cultural influence of women became a flash point as critics continued to debate changes to divorce and inheritance laws that benefited women. Politicians and journalists blamed divorce as a root cause of social disorder; a woman who could threaten to leave her husband undercut his masculine authority and disrupted families.
Writer and cultural critic Louis-Sébastien Mercier offered a harsh critique of the divorce law in 1797, asserting that “Friends of law and order, sensible people recognize that it opened the door wide to licentiousness and moral depravity, already so widespread.” Politicians demanded divorce law reform on behalf of their voters, decrying its “disastrous and scandalous effect.” French newspapers printed polemical essays and letters to the editor on the topic and reported on legislative debates.
Purported sexual misbehavior also generated concern. Between 1794 and 1799, legislators and social critics complained about the shamelessness and political meddling of elite women who wore revealing clothing and pursued the pleasures of life beyond the home. The argument was that the changes in inheritance laws gave them access to resources that financed their independent and luxurious lifestyles, attending balls and hosting salons. One politician decried the consequences of female independence, which, he believed, led inexorably to adultery, warning, “Establish the independence of the mother, and you will render all paternity uncertain.”
Eventually, Napoleon Bonaparte took advantage of France’s disorder and cultural anxieties to establish male authoritarian rule. Defenders of Napoleon and his November 1799 coup d’état pointed to the political and social chaos of the Directory, exacerbated by the corrupting influence of ostensibly licentious women on weak men who had shown themselves incapable of exercising control over their families and the government. Napoleon believed this as well. It was high time that strong, “manly” men — preferably those with military credentials — took control of the government and their families. The Napoleonic Code of 1804 made getting a divorce more onerous, at least for women, whose ability to initiate divorce proceedings was severely limited (divorce would be outlawed entirely in 1816), and it tightened husbands’ control over their wives and family resources.
The lesson? Deriding the power and potential liberty that sexual freedom and divorce offered women became a way to critique a society that empowered a more diverse citizenry. But in reality, perceptions of “chaos” and proposed solutions creating “order” through “traditional” values was — and still is — about restoring power to older regimens and hierarchies. It can also be cruel, limiting choices and freedoms. Perceived disorder is a powerful force for constraint; the desire for fairness is a powerful force for change.
Christine Adams, a former American Council for Learned Societies and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellow at the Newberry Library, is professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and author of “The Creation of the French Royal Mistress” with Tracy Adams.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.
