Napoleon and the Woman Question: Discourses of the Other Sex in French Education, Medicine, and Medical Law, 1799–1815 (review)

In this excellent book, June K. Burton examines the so-called woman question—that is, the debate over “women’s nature” and all the social and moral duties this nature entailed—as it was discussed in education, law, medicine, and forensic science during the Napoleonic period (1799–1815). Using a wealth of archival and printed sources, Burton moves beyond more traditional hegemonic models of medical power and authority and admirably captures the shifts and complexities found in medical theory, public policy, and the lived experiences of women themselves.

During the French Revolution, as Burton reminds, popular democracy and women’s activism unleashed tremendous anxiety about normative gender roles. Consequently, during the postradical backlash, legislators and ideologues sought to re-establish compromised hierarchies through domestic law and fill the cultural vacuum left by monarchy and church. Biomedical science played an important role. Activists believed that they first needed to sort out the biological elements of human nature before they built new institutions, laws, and policies. These beliefs had important consequences for gender relations. Intellectual elites, including prominent physicians, claimed that the “uterine temperament” and glandular function limited how women could think and what they could do in public life. These ideas were echoed in pedagogy and educational practices, and even appeared in the writings of women reformers.

But when Burton looks beyond official ideologies, the picture becomes fuzzy, because in fact the Napoleonic state was active on behalf of women’s health and education. These innovations form the core focus of Burton’s book, and they are impressive to note. For example, Napoleon helped organize and fund the Society of Maternal Charity in Paris and forty other towns in order to encourage maternal breast feeding. He created the Legion of Honor girls’ schools, headed by leading female pedagogues, at Ecouen and Saint Denis, as well as homes for orphan girls in Paris, Barbeaux, and Loges. He also launched an official journal of educational policy that discussed female education and was edited by Pauline Guizot.

Most significantly, Napoleon wanted to lower the dismal rate of infant morality. To stop this blight, he created the first national system of midwifery education. Directed by prominent midwives and obstetricians, the system included hospitals such as La Maternité in Paris (which taught midwifery and provided childbirth and wet-nursing facilities) and an expansive network for training midwives at the departmental level. Finally, in 1811, Napoleon tried to stop infanticide and abortion by instituting a national system of hospice tours (wheels) to allow parents to abandon unwanted children, which in France was a new policy development.

Burton speculates that these policies stemmed from Napoleon’s ambiguous feelings toward women. Though the emperor declared that women were “machines to make babies” (a metaphor taken from iatromechanical medicine), he also saw them as strong, autonomous beings—even strong enough to launch a full-scale “war between the sexes.” But this strength also meant that women could run the day-to-day needs of his empire while the men were out fighting wars. Napoleon probably derived these opinions by observing his mother, Letizia Ramolina Bonaparte (1750–1836), who had a strong will and had helped the Paoli-led struggle to free Corsica.

Of course, as Burton cautions, Napoleonic policies often stemmed from paternalistic and utilitarian impulses. Napoleon needed to staunch the demographic hemorrhage caused by his endless wars, and he wanted to inculcate domestic ideology among his imperial subjects. In other cases, as with punishing infanticide, Napoleon remained a hard-line conservative. Worse yet, his child abandonment system rapidly became a policy nightmare as the expanded foundling hospitals became death houses for small children.

Still—and this is Burton’s main conclusion—Napoleon recognized women’s “relational roles” in French society and saw them as crucial parts...