La femme au dix-huitième siècle

An analytical portrait reconstructs women's lives and roles across the eighteenth century, tracing stages from birth and upbringing through convent life and marriage, and examining fashions, domestic routines, and social expectations. Drawing on letters, legal records, pamphlets, paintings, and other contemporary artifacts, the work combines psychological observation with social history to expose the period's habits, moral codes, and contradictions. It pays particular attention to education, household rituals, dress and spectacle, and the tensions between outward gaiety and underlying social structures, aiming to reconstitute everyday experience and the moral imagination that shaped female existence in the era.