The Status Of Men And Women In Early Modern French Society: Bertrande De Rols And Francois Poullain De La Barre's Treatises
Number of pages:
7
ABSTRACT:
7 pages in length. Had Bertrande de Rols learned to read and lived long enough to have had the opportunity to partake of Francois Poullain de la Barre's "Three Cartesian Feminist Treatises," thereby giving her the chance to debate with him the status of men and women in early modern French society, one might readily surmise how gleefully overwhelmed and supportive she would have been with his argument. Responding with resounding defense, Bertrande – as depicted in Natalie Zemon Davis' "The Return of Martin Guerre" – would have likely helped him champion his cause, since she was quite a defiant, strong willed woman in an era when such attributes were not readily accepted in the female gender. Even though her situation in sixteenth-century France may have reflected a bit more gender equality in certain familial ways – "…the testaments in the area around Artigat rarely benefit one child but instead provide dowries for the daughters…(If there are only daughters, the property is divided equally among them)" (Zemon Davis PG) – Bertrande would have experienced for herself the extent to which such inequity was ripe for challenge in relationship to the world that Poullain experienced a century later. No additional sources cited.
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