Against Marriage
Regular price
€92.99
17th century
A01=Duchesse de Montpensier d'Orleans
anne marie louise dorleans
aristocracy
aristocrats
Author_Duchesse de Montpensier d'Orleans
Category=DND
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHD
childless
commodification
courtship
culture
duchess of montpensier
dynamics
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
equality
equity
europe
european
france
french
gender studies
heiress
influence
inheritance
la grande mademoiselle
letter writing
letters
marriage
money
power
social advantage
translated
translation
unmarried
wealth
women
Product details
- ISBN 9780226534909
- Weight: 312g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Dec 2002
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In 17th-century France, aristocratic women were valued by their families as commodities to be married off in exchange for money, social advantage or military alliance. Once married, they became legally subservient to their husbands. The duchesse de Montpensier - a first cousin of Louis XIV - was one of very few exceptions, thanks to the vast wealth she inherited from her mother, who died shortly after Montpensier was born. In the daring letters presented in this bilingual edition, Montpensier condemns the alliance system of marriage, proposing instead to found a republic that she would govern, "a corner of the world in which ...women are their own mistresses", and where marriage and even courtship would be outlawed. Her pastoral utopia would provide medical care and vocational training for the poor, and all the homes would have libraries and studies, so that each woman would have "a rooom of her own" in which to write books. Joan DeJean's lively introduction and accessible translation of Montpensier's letters - four previously unpublished - allow us unprecedented access to the courageous voice of this extraordinary woman.
Joan DeJean is Trustee Professor of French at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of a number of books, most recently Ancients against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siecle and The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
