Women's Rights During The French Revolution

Women have for very long been considered as illegitimate in politics in France. This long tradition of excluding women from exercising political power goes back to the Ancien Regime (the French Kingship), when women were ruled out the throne succession ever since the second Salic law, passed in the XVth century, stating that no woman could transmit or inherit the French crown. It went on during the French Revolution of 1789. Establishing their political incapacity as an absolute principle, the Revolution has legitimized for almost two centuries women’s incompetence in public affairs, despite their active participation in the revolutionary process. By the newly established Constitution, women were not considered as active citizens and as a consequence didn’t obtain political rights. This political ostracism went on during the XIXth century and until late in the XXth. The Constitution established in 1848, founding the second Republic, acknowledged many important principles: strict separation between legislative, judicial and executive powers, establishment of fundamental liberties such as freedom of press, of religion, of association, abolition of slavery, and adoption of the so-called universal suffrage. Only it became universal … except for women.

Whereas in Britain, the Suffragist Movement, after years of repression and of sometimes violent actions, eventually gained political rights in 1918, while many European countries had already given political rights to women before World War II, in France, the opposition was still very strong and based on two main arguments: on one hand, women were said to be by nature to pure, to worthy, made for care and love, to go into the rude arena of politics; on the other hand, women were immature, inferior, influenceable, and incapable of taking an intelligent and autonomous part in political