FRENCH FAMILIES AND THE REVOLUTION IN INHERITANCE LAW: MONTAUBAN, 1775-1825

This dissertation examines family organization and the impact of sweeping changes in inheritance law in revolutionary France. It is a case study, exploring and illustrating the relationships between family, work and property in the southern city of Montauban from 1775 to 1825.;The dissertation discusses family organization in Montauban's different social groups, the elite, the artisans and shopkeepers, the poor and the peasants. It concludes that the impact of the Revolution and the change in inheritance law was directed by two factors, the kind and amount of property and the prevailing family strategies. The poor and the elite who had developed family strategies which included a wide circle of kin and friends, were best able to adapt to the new conditions, both legal and economic. Families with some but not abundant property, like artisans and peasant proprietors, had developed family strategies of exclusion; they husbanded the patrimony by limiting the number of persons it supported. The Revolution most affected these families. Montauban's economic collapse jeopardized their small capital; equal inheritance encouraged those excluded--women and younger sons--to insist upon a larger share of the family's resources. Fundamental changes in strategies and family concepts resulted.;The concept of the family endorsed by Roman law and southern French custom was hierarchical and authoritarian, exemplified in the practice of primogeniture. The French Revolution designed legislation to create an egalitarian and affectionate family. An analysis of marriage contracts and wills reveals that French families were neither so authoritarian nor so egalitarian as the laws envisioned. These documents suggest that the prevailing legal system established only the outside boundaries of family organization. Changes in social and economic environment were important as well. From a thriving industrial and commercial city in the 1770s, Montauban declined into a country town. Within these contexts, the way Montaubaners organized their families and the beliefs they held about familial obligations and prerogatives depended upon gender, marital status, and socio-economic group, work and property.