Family Ties in Revolutionary Perspective

Suzanne Desan's The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France traces the two-way flow of influence between revolutionary legislators and the members of the country's millions of family units. The Revolution's redefinition of the marriage and inheritance rights affected the entire population, and the attempt to structure the family so that it would reinforce the values of liberty and equality was one of the revolutionaries' major preoccupations. Desan argues against interpretations of the Revolution as fundamentally misogynist, and insists that even in its conservative post-thermidorian phase, the movement still offered women considerably more rights than they retained under Napoleon's Civil Code. Desan's work is thus a major contribution to revolutionary history, and offers a new approach to the understanding of the connections between revolutionary politics and society.