Families and Communities in Post-Revolutionary France

There is today in France a Minister of Social Cohesion [ministre de la cohesion sociale]. Whatever the specific attributions of such a ministry, its very existence betrays the sense of a lack of social cohesion, of a crumbling of the social fabric. Could it be that this sense is inherent to democracies, with their ideals of Liberty and Equality? Could it be that the principle "the liberty of every man ends where the liberty of the others begins" ["la liberte des uns finit oh commence celle des autres"] leads to the isolation of each member of society in his circumscribed sovereignty, and that the principle of equality leads to the atomization of the whole? Could it be that the aspiration towards a never complete liberty and a never reached equality makes constraints and inequalities all the more manifest and unbearable? Does this explain the insistence on Fraternity, a term added to the Republican motto in 1848, but implicit in the republican ideology since 1789? The fear of the lack of social cohesion became rampant in post-revolutionary France, a time marked by the abolition of the most blatant injustices of the Old Regime, which, however, ushered in a century punctuated by political revolutions, shaken by industrial revolution, and in quest for stable references. Here is the diagnosis of Tocqueville in Democracy in America: "Aristocracy linked all citizens in a long chain which stretched from peasant to king; democracy breaks the chain and splits asunder each rung." To be sure, "the individual benefits." But democracy "loosens the social links." ["L'aristocratie avait fait de tons les citoyens une longue chaine qui remontait du paysan au roi; la democratie brise la chaine et met chaque anneau a part." Certes "l'individu y gagne." Mais la democratie "detend les liens sociaux." (1)] The Revolution undermined the vertical and horizontal bonds or "chains" which had cemented feudal society and which still held fast under the Bourbon monarchy, from serfs to King-Father, himself set by divine right under the aegis of God-the-Father. These social bonds were numerous, including those of caste, vasselage or clientele; of province, village or neighborhood; of age class (bachelleries and other youth groups), of profession (corporations, compagnonnages), of parish or monastery, and, foremost among them, of family--family as extended kinship and sometimes household, embedded in a patriarchal structure. For centuries, these networks had insured a steady exchange of goods, services and knowledge, presided over collective duties and festivities, intervened in nuptial traditions, births and funerals, contributed to socialization from childhood to apprenticeship, ostracized strangers, controlled behavior with rites of integration and segregation, propitiation and exorcism. Of necessity, however, these "chains" could not help but limit the individual, who had no choice but to submit or rebel and be marginalized. They also tended to encroach upon monarchical supremacy, which both relied on, supported and kept in check the various corps intermediaires of feudalism, including the patriarchal family. Hostile to such communities, the Revolution glorified the autonomous Individual on the one hand, the consensual Nation on the other. That individual is informed by Enlightenment and endowed with a Cartesian reason, a Rousseauistic moral sense, and a new thirst for happiness. He is master of his person, of his possessions and of his dealings--the individual par excellence being a male, of legal age, and property holder. Before him stands the Nation, no longer made up of orders granted privileges, but of citizens obeying a unique Law--the citizen par excellence, citoyen actif, being, however, neither a female, nor a domestic, nor exceedingly poor. Directly responsible to the Nation, this citizen is conceived of as independent from his century-long tutelages. The Jacobins were consequently accused of destroying communities and extended families. …