I was recently intrigued by the memoir Journal of My Life by Jacques Louis Menetra, an artisan in 18th century France. It provides one of the more candid unveilings of eighteenth century artisan life in a historical period somewhat lacking in primary sources. As a companion to this memoir, I also read James Collins’ article “The Economic Role of Women in Seventeenth-Century France” in the Fall 1989 issue of French Historical Studies. Based on these two works, I have composed the following piece to make sense of women’s role in seventeenth and eighteenth century France. My findings conclude that women were an economic contributor beyond what traditional patriarchal history reveals, and as such were viable forces behind the success of commerce in this time period.

Women have been placed on the fringes of history, making their efforts, struggles, and everyday lives opaque. It is with great difficulty that modern historians must extrapolate the intricacies of daily life in early modern Europe, and even harder still is doing so with women as the focus. There is little overt documentation, but deductive analysis of tax receipts, parish records, and inheritance documents shed light on the roles women played in early modern European society. Until recently, women were thought to have played a much less significant role in the economy of Europe. In fact, the idea was purveyed that since women’s role in politics was negligible, so too were their economic contributions. Yet despite attempts at consolidating patriarchal power by admonishing women’s legal status, men were unable to fully undermine women. As evidenced by scholars like James B. Collins, author of “The Economic Role of Women in Seventeenth-Century France,”¹ women in France underwent significant changes in economic upward mobility that resulted in more substantial monetary gains, a shift in traditional social hierarchical roles, and, most importantly, their increased viability as an economic force.

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