Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France Desan Merrick Hardback

Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern FranceAuthor(s): Suzanne Desan, Jeffrey Merrick\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, United States\nImprint: Pennsylvania State University Press\nISBN-13: 9780271034690, 978-0271034690\nSynopsis\nThe essays in Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France explore how ordinary men and women negotiated power within early modern French households and continually reinvented their families in response to external forces. Larger processes, such as state building, religious reform, changing understandings of gender roles, and economic developments, influenced family practices in the areas of marriage, separation, guardianship, and illegitimacy. Relatives, gender, community, and the law imposed limits upon families but also provided opportunities for agency. Contributors investigate patterns of courtship and decisions about marriage; the financial power exercised by wives; marital conflict and related controversies about .