Provocative assessment of how new ideas about motherhood and domesticity in pre-Revolutionary France helped women demand social and political equality later on
In this lively interdisciplinary blend of history, education, and material culture, Jennifer J. Popiel examines ideological and cultural shifts in French child rearing and maternity from pre-Revolutionary France to 1833. She shows how ideals promoted in Rousseau’s educational treatise Emile (1762) anchored women more firmly in private life by emphasizing their critical role in their children’s early education and development. Emile marked the beginning of a widespread shift toward domestic nurturing, with an emphasis on self-control, autonomy, and gender difference. This “domestic revolution” not only drove new genres of literature, clothing styles, and toys, but as Popiel persuasively argues, it also set the stage for greater civic participation of women
and children.
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JENNIFER J POPIEL is assistant professor in the Department of History, Saint Louis University, Missouri.
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