A choice not to wed? Unmarried women in eighteenth-century France

This study is an attempt to remedy this neglect of unmarried lay women in pre-revolutionary France.(4) It examines the special case of two unmarried sisters, Marie and Marianne de Lamothe, in an effort to shed some light on the experiences of single women in eighteenth-century Europe. In doing so, it will address several important questions, including: what were the lives of these unmarried women like? Why did they make the choices they did? Where did they fit into their family's household structure and strategies? What were their own goals and aspirations?

One might ask: why is it so important to study single women as a separate group? The short answer is that the experiences of single women were very different from those of married women. To an extent much more dramatic than in the case of men, marital status determined the social, economic, and legal condition of women in early modern times.(5)

Assessment of the quality of spinster life in times past has generally been harshly negative, despite some revision of this view in recent years.(6) Olwen Hufton notes that the unattractive portrait of the spinster was already starting to take shape in the literature of the eighteenth century.(7) But it was in the nineteenth century that the caricature of the spinster was firmly set. The stereotype of the spinster was of an unattractive, slightly hysterical, and often unhealthy female. This image was due at least in part to the perception by the early nineteenth century that the number of unmarried females was growing, even exploding, and that the decision of women not to marry (or their inability to do so) constituted a major societal problem.(8)

The spinster was clearly a social anomaly. Lacking a husband, a man to support and protect her, she was usually dependent upon parents or siblings for her livelihood. Or, if lacking familial assistance, she was forced to support herself on an inadequate salary, garnered through textiles or domestic work if she came from the working class, or as a governess if she was of genteel social origins.(9) Women, generally denied fruitful employment outside the family, were valued primarily as members of the family economy, preferably as mistress of the household. The spinster could seldom achieve this more desirable position, ceding it to either her mother or her sister-in-law. According to Miriam Slater, "Spinsterhood condemned one to a lifetime of peripheral existence: it was a functionless role played out at the margins of other people's lives without even that minimal raison d'etre - the possibility of bearing children - which was supposed to comfort and sustain the married woman."(10)

This is the stereotype. However, few studies have been done that actually explore the lives and choices of the spinster in early modern European society.(11) It seems possible that at least some women may have embraced the single life - whether due to dislike of the idea of marriage or due to a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment in their roles as sister and daughter. However, to regard this decision as an unproblematic "choice" is risky. Family discipline might encourage a daughter or sister to choose a lifetime of celibacy, leading her to sacrifice a home and family of her own for the good of her natal family. This combination of factors seems to have been at work in the case of Marie and Marianne de Lamothe.

The Lamothe sisters were members of a professional family in eighteenth-century Bordeaux. The Lamothes formed a large and loving family, headed by Daniel Lamothe, a barrister at the Parlement of Bordeaux, and his wife, Marie de Serezac. Three of their sons also became lawyers, one a doctor, and one a priest. Marie, the eldest daughter, and second-oldest child, and Marianne, one of the youngest children of the family, were not the only members of the family to remain unmarried. Of seven children, only the eldest son, Simon-Antoine-Delphin, married.

The warm family life of the Lamothes is illuminated by a rich source of materials, a collection of over three hundred personal letters that were written by the members of the family over a period of twenty-five years. The letters reveal a devoted group, closely bound as much by their deep affection as by their sense of duty to the family, siblings, and parents. These letters form the basis of our knowledge of the Lamothes' family life.(12)

The personalities of each member of the Lamothe family emerge clearly in the family letters, and give us important clues to the values and concerns of Marie and Marianne de Lamothe. The salient qualities of their letters to their brother Victor, a medical student in Paris, are intense religiosity and passionate devotion to their parents and siblings. Marie and Marianne modeled themselves on their much-loved mother and devoted themselves to the care of their father and brothers and the household. Their letters suggest that they were content with their lives, and actively chose their single existence. Their seeming contentment belies the negative image of the spinster.