Les refus de la maternité
This study examines the legal, religious and social issues surrounding contraceptive practices and motherhood outside marriage in France from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. It begins by analysing the central role of the Catholic Church in regulating female sexuality and procreation, a role that the author places in perspective with contemporary scandals that have renewed scholarly interest in these questions. The aim is to understand how canon law and secular law framed, sanctioned or tolerated women’s strategies for refusing motherhood.
The first part traces the influence of canon law from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. It shows how marriage and motherhood constituted the foundations of the Church’s definition of womanhood, while contraceptive practices were viewed as secret, magical or associated with witchcraft. The author also examines the enduring influence of ancient medical theories and theological debates on the animation of the embryo, which shaped moral and legal perceptions of abortion. This section further demonstrates how theologians gradually imposed increasingly strict control over female sexuality, despite the absence of clear legal definitions of sin or crime in matters relating to contraception or abortion.
The second part explores the growing role of secular power between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Under royal authority, procreation became a matter of state concern, notably through Henry II’s edict mandating the declaration of pregnancy. Despite regional variations in practice, women remained at the centre of suspicion, while religious debates over the status of the foetus persisted. In the modern period, moral prohibitions remained strong, but marital contraception gradually came to be tolerated, unlike abortion, which was subject to increasing repression. The Revolution and the Empire reaffirmed the centrality of marriage, reinforced state control over motherhood and criminalised abortion, while maintaining a deeply pronatalist vision. During the nineteenth century, demographic anxieties and the renewed influence of Catholicism further intensified constraints on unmarried mothers, midwives and birth control practices.
The book’s central argument is to highlight the decisive role played first by the Church and later by the State in establishing continuous control over motherhood. Its major strengths lie in the richness of its sources, the diversity of texts analysed, and a nuanced examination of both continuities and ruptures between religious norms and secular legislation.
