The social revolution in French revolutionary families

This piece responds to Jeremy Popkin by emphasizing a central theme in The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France: many French individuals experienced the tumultuous 1790s as a social revolution as well as a political one. This social revolution took place within households as all sorts of family members attempted to apply revolutionary political ideals, such as "liberty" or "equality", to their intimate relationships and also to implement or resist reforms in family law. By drawing on a regional study of family court cases in Normandy, this response summarizes how various factors-including class, geography, family position, and politics-influenced the ability of various family members to divorce, press paternity suits, or gain access to egalitarian inheritance, as decreed for legitimate and illegitimate children alike. In grassroots practice within families, two patterns stand out: the decline of parental, especially paternal, authority, and the challenge to marital indissolubility and male authority within marriage. This piece also addresses the complex and varied impact of the French Revolution on women and highlights how political culture, law, and social forces interacted to create this social revolution within families.