Women in French Studies

In earlier times, "aut maritus aut murus" was a well-to-do young woman's proverbial fate. Because a nun's dowry cost far less than an upper-class marriage, the nunnery became a convenient repository for less-favored and illegitimate daughters. Despite the disruption of the Revolution, religious vocations increased throughout the nineteenth century, finally including one percent of all French people. Nuns eventually outnumbered the clergy. As nuns, they escaped "the economy of homosocial exchange," and could play all social roles within a democratically organized convent. Sand and Hugo each recognized the appeal of the convent as a potential site of female autonomy, particularly in the 1839 Lélia and in Les Misérables (1862). Lélia was a thought experiment with which Sand attempted to work through the problem of pride and her discouragement with visionary socialism. In contrast, Hugo adopts a voyeuristic stance toward convent life, but sympathizes with his nuns' defiant separatism from secular authority.