Heredity, reproduction, and perfectibility in revolutionary and Napoleonic France, 1789–1815

Abstract

During the French Revolution, there appeared a striking and far-ranging medical literature on heredity, reproduction and biological 'perfectibility'. In some ways anticipating ideas associated with modern eugenics, these writings emerged from radical revolutionary projects for 'physical and moral regeneration' and incarnated deep-seated desires to transform French society and make a 'new man' in mind and body. But by breaking down boundaries between public and private life, doctors did more than just try to regulate intimate sexual behaviour. Instead, they proffered a more intimate vision of civic volunteerism, in which sexual hygiene and domestic practices allowed their patients to imagine new forms of society and gave them ways to attain these socio-political dreams. Moreover, they were responding to powerful new worries about heredity and sought to counsel their patients in the ways of family panning. By the end of revolutionary period, then, medical and lay thinkers had transformed the marriage bed and household into a specially controlled environment - a kind of affective laboratory - in which conscientious parents could make healthy children and raise them in the context of specific political and social values.