The Moral History of Women by Ernest Legouve

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The Moral History of Women
Ernest Legouve
Rudd and Carleton, Paris, 1860

      "The Revolution broke out; two eminent minds, Condorcet * and Sieyes +, demanded, one in the Assembly, and the other through the press, the domestic and even political emancipation of women; but their protestations were stifled by the strong voices of the three great exponents of the eighteenth century, Mirabeau, Danton, and Robespierre.
      Mirabeau, in his work on Public Education, takes ground decidedly against the admission of women to any social office, and also against their presence in any public assembly.
      Danton, the sensualistic disciple of Diderot, saw little in them except sensuality.
      Robespierre directly opposed, and caused the rejection of, the proposition of Sieyes, and afterwards not a line from his pen, not a word from his mouth, went forth to protest against the dependence of woman in the family. The great apostle of equality forgot in his plan of emancipation only half of the human race.
      * Journal de la Societe, of 1789
      + I have not been able to find in the Moniteur the discourse of Sieyes; but it is under the date of '91, in the remarkable work of M. Lairtuillier on the Women of the Revolution, Introduction, p. 18." found in Legouve p. 21. A later footnote on the same page gives Lairtuillier, Femmes de la Revolution, Introduction, p. 18" In a footnote near the end of this book, Legouve refers to Lairtuillier's History of the Women of the Revolution (Historie de la Femmes de la Revolution). So, take your choice as to the title of the book by Lairtuillier.
      I found the following on-line: Lairtullier, E., Les femmes celebres de 1789 à 1795, et leur influence dans la revolution, pour servir de suite et de complement à toutes les histoires de la revolution française (Paris: S.n., 1840). Note difference in spelling of author's name.
"Question a countryman [French peasant] about his family, he will answer: "I have no children, sir; I have only daughters." The Breton farmer whose wife has brought forth a daughter, says to this day: :My wife has had a miscarriage." p. 31
p. 129 Mentions Merite des Femmes about the merits of women, written in the era of the French Revolution
About a woman and her newborn: "During her pregnancy, he had so cruelly dragged her by the hair across the sandstone rocks at Fontainebleau, that she was delivered of a foolish, dumb child, disfigured by convulsions; and for six months afterwards, whenever the little idiot heard the man's voice, it trembled in its mother's arms, as though it recognized the fierce tones of him who had struck it with hear, and almost with death, while yet it lay in the womb." p. 155
Quoting Condorcet: " "In the name of what principle, in the name of what right," asks Condorcet, "do we in a republican state, exclude women from public duties? I cannot understand it. The phrase National Representation signifies the representation of the nation. Do women, then, constitute no part of the nation? This assembly meets for the purpose of defining and maintaining the rights of the French nation. Do women constitute no part of the French nation? With men the right of electing and being elected rests solely on the condition that they shall be intelligent and free beings. Are women not free and intelligent beings? The only disqualifications for this right are a sentence of corporal or ignominious punishment, and minority. Have all the women then been in the clutches of the public prosecutor? and can they not read in our laws that 'Every individual of either sex, twenty-one years old, is of age?' If you argue the physical weakness of women, then should every representative be summoned before a medical jury, and all those rejected who have the gout every winter. If you object to women on the score of their deficient instruction, their lack of political aptitude, it seems to me that there are many representatives who might be dispensed with on the same ground. The more we interrogate common sense and republican principles, the less just cause do we find for excluding women from politics. Even the leading objection, which is in everybody's mouth -- the argument that claims that to open a political career to women is to separate them from the fam8ily -- has only an apparent weight. For, in the first place, it does not apply to the world of women who have never been wives, or who are no longer such; and moreover, if it is conclusive, we must, for the same reason, prohibit women from all manufacturing or commercial employments, for these positions debar thousands of them from family duties, while political offices do not employ a hundred in all France. Finally, an illustrious woman [Olympe de Gouges] dismisses the question with these proud words: 'Woman has the same right to ascend the tribune that she has to mount the scaffold.' " "pp. 335-336 Journal de la Societe, of 1789, No. 5, July, 1790
      "Our task is ended; we have examined the principal phases in the life of women, in their characters as daughters, wives, mothers, and women, comparing the past with the present, and seeking to penetrate the future -- in a word, demonstrating the evil, proposing the remedy, and foretelling the benefits.
      What principle has served us as a guide? Equality, yet difference. In the name of this principle, what improvements have we asked for in the laws and customs? Just these:
      For daughter: reform of education; laws for seduction; postponement of the marriageable age; personal interference of the betrothed parties in the execution of the marriage contract; abolition of the "respectful protest," which is an insult to the father, and an injustice to the child.
      For wives: legal age- majority; the management of, and the right to dispose of their own property; the right to go to law without the consent of their husbands; limitation of the husband's power over the person of his wife; creation of a family council to decide such questions.
      For mothers: right of direction; right of education; right of consent to the marriage of their children; a law for the investigation of paternity; creation of a family council, to arrange serious disagreements between father and mother.
      For women: admission to guardianship, and the family council; admission to the professions; admission. within certain limits as to capability and duty, to public offices.
      Ultra reformers will find that we ask very little, while the admirers of antiquity will think we demand too much; and this assures us that we ask just enough." pp. 341-342
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last updated Dec 1, 2000