Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France Export

@article{citeulike:503625, abstract = {In Early Modern France the model for monarchic statebuilding was not political and constitutional, as heretofore imagined, but social and familial. This early state model was not centered on political institutions that served an amorphous public, but was derived from a \"Family-State Compact\" that legalized gender distinctions in the service of family formation. This article discusses the formulation of the Family-State compact between 1530 and 1640 and reconstructs court cases taken before the Parlement of Paris between 1580 and 1730 in order to assess the results wrought from the relation between the \"practice of the structure\" (the regulations of the compact) and the \"structure of the practice\" (the actions of the human agents). It shows how women, who were placed at risk in this system, appropriated law and custom to fit themselves and produced across class lines a \"counterfeit culture\" that minimized risks. Finally, the study notes how the litigants, who printed their stories and distributed them in the streets of Paris, transformed legal procedures into street dramas that informed public opinion and provoked public discourse on social entitlement right up to the eve of the Revolution.}, author = {Hanley, Sarah}, citeulike-article-id = {503625}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/286431}, journal = {French Historical Studies}, keywords = {c16th, c17th, gender, history, politics}, number = {1}, pages = {4--27}, posted-at = {2006-02-13 09:42:17}, priority = {3}, title = {Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/286431}, volume = {16}, year = {1989} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:503625 L3 - citeulike-article-id:503625 N2 - In Early Modern France the model for monarchic statebuilding was not political and constitutional, as heretofore imagined, but social and familial. This early state model was not centered on political institutions that served an amorphous public, but was derived from a "Family-State Compact" that legalized gender distinctions in the service of family formation. This article discusses the formulation of the Family-State compact between 1530 and 1640 and reconstructs court cases taken before the Parlement of Paris between 1580 and 1730 in order to assess the results wrought from the relation between the "practice of the structure" (the regulations of the compact) and the "structure of the practice" (the actions of the human agents). It shows how women, who were placed at risk in this system, appropriated law and custom to fit themselves and produced across class lines a "counterfeit culture" that minimized risks. Finally, the study notes how the litigants, who printed their stories and distributed them in the streets of Paris, transformed legal procedures into street dramas that informed public opinion and provoked public discourse on social entitlement right up to the eve of the Revolution. IS - 1 JF - French Historical Studies EP - 27 TI - Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France VL - 16 SP - 4 KW - c16th KW - c17th KW - gender KW - history KW - politics AU - Hanley, Sarah PY - 1989/// UR - http://www.jstor.org/stable/286431 ER -