Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
Europe, modern, activism, children, class, family, feminist, marriage, motherhood, religion
Abstract
Recent works have enunciated how literature, material culture, and philosophy of the nineteenth century emphasized women’s “natural” role as maternal educator. Increasingly, the only acceptable way that women could really participate in society was by marrying, giving birth, and nurturing children. Oddly enough, however, this same period saw the creation of numerous new orders for Catholic women as well as the establishment of multiple feminine organizations that downplayed the importance of physical maternity in women’s lives. While women were supposed to see their only vocation in giving birth and nurturing children, they took their spiritual mission into the world, in clear opposition to religious rhetoric limiting them to the home.
This paper attempts to deal with this paradox. It outlines how children’s games from the nineteenth century complicate traditional explanations about domesticity and separate spheres. In the didactic message provided by games, relationships between men and women were not, even at late as 1870, emphasized or prioritized. Love did not clearly lead to marriage and marriage was not itself something that was particularly encouraged or rewarded. While we can certainly note that the dominant philosophy of the nineteenth century valorized maternity, that message was not always accompanied by an emphasis on love in the secular world. In children’s games at least, fidelity and other virtues could be found, but perhaps they were easiest to accomplish with a heavenly spouse rather than an earthly one.
Keywords
France, childhood, marriage, celibacy, religion, affection, material culture
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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Class, Culture, and Promulgation of the Domestic Ideal in Nineteenth-Century France
Recent works have enunciated how literature, material culture, and philosophy of the nineteenth century emphasized women’s “natural” role as maternal educator. Increasingly, the only acceptable way that women could really participate in society was by marrying, giving birth, and nurturing children. Oddly enough, however, this same period saw the creation of numerous new orders for Catholic women as well as the establishment of multiple feminine organizations that downplayed the importance of physical maternity in women’s lives. While women were supposed to see their only vocation in giving birth and nurturing children, they took their spiritual mission into the world, in clear opposition to religious rhetoric limiting them to the home.
This paper attempts to deal with this paradox. It outlines how children’s games from the nineteenth century complicate traditional explanations about domesticity and separate spheres. In the didactic message provided by games, relationships between men and women were not, even at late as 1870, emphasized or prioritized. Love did not clearly lead to marriage and marriage was not itself something that was particularly encouraged or rewarded. While we can certainly note that the dominant philosophy of the nineteenth century valorized maternity, that message was not always accompanied by an emphasis on love in the secular world. In children’s games at least, fidelity and other virtues could be found, but perhaps they were easiest to accomplish with a heavenly spouse rather than an earthly one.