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- Women were active participants in the events which brought about so many important changes in French society from the very beginning .
- They hoped that their involvement would pressurise the revolutionary government to introduce measures to improve their lives .
- Most women of the third estate had to work for a living . They worked as seamstresses or laundresses , sold flowers , fruits and vegetables at the market, or were employed as domestic servants in the houses of prosperous people.
- Most women did not have access to education or job training . Only daughters of nobles or wealthier members of the third estate could study at a convent .
- Working women had to care for their families, that is, cook , fetch water , queue up for bread and look after the children .
- Their wages were lower than those of men .
- To discuss and voice their interests, women started their political clubs and newspapers .
- About sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities.
- The Society of Revolutionary and Republican Women was the most famous of them.
- Their main political demand was equal political rights for women as men .
- They were disappointed that the Constitution of 1791 reduced them to passive citizens .
- They demanded the right to vote , to be elected to the Assembly and to hold political office .
- They felt only then their interests would be represented in the new government .
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In the early years, the
revolutionary government
did introduce
laws
that helped
improve the lives of women like
- With the creation of state schools , schooling was made compulsory for all girls .
- Their fathers could no longer force them into marriage against their will .
- Marriage was made into a contract entered into freely and registered under civil law.
- Divorce was made legal , and could be applied for by both women and men .
- Women could now train for jobs , could become artists or run small businesses.
- However, women’s struggle for equal political rights continued.
- But during the Reign of Terror , the new government issued laws ordering the closure of women’s clubs and banning their political activities .
- Many prominent women were arrested and a number of them were executed .
- Women’s movements for voting rights and equal wages continued through the next two hundred years in many countries of the world .
- The fight for the vote was carried out through an international suffrage movement during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- The example of the political activities of French women during the revolutionary years was kept alive as an inspiring memory .
- Finally in 1946 women in France won the right to vote .
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