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Sex and its consequences: abortion, infanticide, and women’s reproductive decision-making in France, 1901-1940

Huber, Karen E.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1187032776

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
This dissertation is a study of women who faced trial for reproductive crimes, including abortion and infanticide, in France between 1901 and 1940. It adds to an already rich historiography on the French demographic transition, the development of the welfare state, and the history of working class women by illuminating the relationship between women, their sexual and reproductive decision-making, and French society at the beginning of the twentieth century. This study examines women’s individual reproductive decisions within the larger historical context of a France that was modernizing, urbanizing, and embracing demographic theories that warned that a falling birthrate would lead to the decline of the nation. Within this context of change for France, women’s reproductive options also changed, as attitudes towards sexuality and family planning slowly shifted and as the safety and accessibility of clandestine abortion improved. Using methodologies of cultural and social history, this dissertation aims to uncover popular attitudes towards reproductive morality, the rights and duties of female citizens to be mothers, and the role of public authority in private lives during the French Third Republic. It begins in 1901, the year the French legislature eliminated the death penalty for infanticide in an effort to reverse decades of refusals by juries to convict obviously guilty but sympathetic women. This study ends in 1940 when France fell to Nazi invasion and the democratic Third Republic was replaced by the authoritarian and paternalist Vichy regime. While the changes that took place for women in France were significant, the continuities were also striking. Social attitudes towards unwed mothers changed slowly, but this did not necessarily mean that all unwed pregnant women were ostracized. Public sympathy for women who committed reproductive crimes after being abandoned by uncaring men remained constant from 1901 until the outbreak of the Second World War and juries continued to show pity for sympathetic criminals with lenient verdicts. The central questions this study addresses are how and to what extent women’s reproductive decision-making changed during the turbulent first four decades of the twentieth century.
Birgitte Soland (Advisor)
242 p.
women; abortion; infanticide; France; natalist movement; female criminals; motherhood; police procedure; public opinion; judicial system; government policy; Lyon; Rennes; Ille-et-Vilaine; Rhone; abortion techniques; single mothers; welfare state

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Huber, K. E. (2007). Sex and its consequences: abortion, infanticide, and women’s reproductive decision-making in France, 1901-1940 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1187032776

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Huber, Karen. Sex and its consequences: abortion, infanticide, and women’s reproductive decision-making in France, 1901-1940. 2007. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1187032776.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Huber, Karen. "Sex and its consequences: abortion, infanticide, and women’s reproductive decision-making in France, 1901-1940." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1187032776

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.