Family and Feminism in the French Revolution: The Case of Rosalie Ducrollay Jullien

Abstract

The debate over whether women had a French Revolution is a spirited one. Limited sources, however, have frustrated our efforts to learn how women described their experience of the Revolutionary decade. This article introduces readers to a new female voice, the bourgeois Parisian, Rosalie Jullien. In her remarkable collection of over eight hundred private letters, we seek evidence of change in her descriptions of women and the family and her gendered self. We argue that the Revolution led gradually to a more republican understanding of family dynamics and a politicization of femininity. However, we also see that new ideas about women's independence mixed ambiguously with traditional notions of gender hierarchy. This insight into the private life and thoughts of an unknown citoyenne demonstrates how ordinary and obscure women could be profoundly influenced by Revolutionary discourse and experience, even if they rarely expressed those changes beyond private writings and interactions.