In this Book
- Contested Paternity: Constructing Families in Modern France
- Book
- 2008
- Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
summary
Winner, 2009 J. Russell Major Prize, American Historical AssociationWinner, 2009 Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize, Western Association of Women HistoriansWinner, 2008 Charles E. Smith Award, European History section of the Southern Historical AssociationThis groundbreaking study examines complex notions of paternity and fatherhood in modern France through the lens of contested paternity. Drawing from archival judicial records on paternity suits, paternity denials, deprivation of paternity, and adoption, from the end of the eighteenth century through the twentieth, Rachel G. Fuchs reveals how paternity was defined and how it functioned in the culture and experiences of individual men and women. She addresses the competing definitions of paternity and of families, how public policy toward paternity and the family shifted, and what individuals did to facilitate their personal and familial ideals and goals. Issues of paternity and the family have broad implications for an understanding of how private acts were governed by laws of the state. Focusing on paternity as a category of family history, Contested Paternity emphasizes the importance of fatherhood, the family, and the law within the greater context of changing attitudes toward parental responsibility.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-15
- 4 Courts Attribute Paternity, 1912–1940
- pp. 160-199
- Works Cited
- pp. 325-343
Additional Information
ISBN
9780801898167
Related ISBN(s)
9780801888328, 9780801898334
MARC Record
OCLC
593242664
Pages
368
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No