Study on Michelet's View of Women

Abstract

In recent years, Jules Michelet has been increasingly studied, but most of them focus on his Romantic Historiography as a whole. As a representative figure of French Romantic Historiography in the 19th century, Michelet paid special attention to women in addition to country and revolutionary history. This paper analyzes Michelet's view of women in terms of his attitude toward women, the moral qualities he advocated, and the ideal social relations he constructed for women. Michelet justified the historically stigmatized women and emphasized the outstanding contribution of women in French history. Michelet saw tolerance and elegance as inherently virtues of women, on the basis of which the ideal woman should also be humble, chaste, and patriotic. Michelet regarded the "supernature", which is a combination of the spiritual qualities of both genders as the perfect one, and he constructed a set of gender relations in which both sides are unified, complementary, harmonious and even equal. He valued the social value of women's pregnancy and child education, and encouraged them to devote themselves to society and the nation without leaving the family in order to achieve the unity of the people. There is no denying that Michelet's view of women is limited by the times, but it is still highly progressive and noteworthy.