From the very beginning women were active participants in the events which brought about so many important changes in French society. They hoped their involvement would pressurise the revolutionary government to introduce measures to improve their lives. Most women of the third estate had to work for a living. They worked as seamstresses or laundresses, sold flowers, fruits in the houses of prosperous people. Most women did not have access to education or job training. Only daughters of nobles or wealthier members of the third estate could study at ca convent, after which their families arranged a marriage for them. Working women had also to care for their families, that is, cook, fetch water, queue up for bread and look after the children. Their wages were lower than those of men.
In order to discuss and voice their interests women started their own political clubs and newspapers. About sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities. The Society of revolutionary and Republican Women was the most famous of them. One of theirmain demands was that women enjoy the same political rights as men. Women were disappointed that the Constitution of 1791 reduced them to passive citizens. They demanded the right to vote, to be elected to the Assembly and to hold political office. Only then, they felt, would their interests be represented in the new government.
In the early years, the revolutionary government did introduce laws that helped improve the lives of women. Together with creation of state schools, schooling was made compulsory for all girls. Their fathers could no longer force them into marriage against their will. Marriage was made into a contract entered into fr4eely and registered under civil law. Divorce was made legal, and could be applied for by both women and men. Women could now train for jobs, could become artists or run small businesses.
Women’s struggle for equal political rights, however, continued. During the Regin of Terror, the new government issued laws ordering closure of women’s clubs and banning their political activities. Many prominent women were arrested and a number of them executed.
Women’s movements for voting righting rights and equal wages continued though the next two hundred years in many countries of the world. The fight for the vote was carried out through an international suffrage movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The example of the political actives of French women during the revolutionary years was kept alive as an inspiring memory. It was finally in 1946 that women in France won the right to vote.
Source E Source F
Some of the basic rights set forth in Olympe de Gouges Declaration.
1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights.
2. The goal of all political associations is the preservation of the natural rights of woman and man: These rights are liberty, property, security, and above all resistance to oppression.
3. The source of all sovereignty resides in the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man.
4. The law should be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens should have a say either personally or by their representatives in its formulation; it should be the same for all. All female and male citizens are equally entitled to all honours and public employment according to their abilities and without any other distinction than that of their talents.
5. No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women, like men, obey this rigorous law.
Source G
In 1793, the Jacobin politician Chaumette sought to justify the closure of women’s clubs on the following grounds: ‘Has Nature entrusted domestic duties to men? Has she given us breasts to nurture babies? No. She said to Man: Be a man. Hunting, agriculture, political duties that is your kingdom. to Woman: an… the things of the household, duties of motherhood – those sks. meless are those women, who wi to become men. Have not duties been fairly distributed?’
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