Derval Conroy - Towards an Equality of the Sexes in Early Modern France

This volume sets out to examine the ways in which an equality between the sexes is constructed, conceptualised, imagined or realised in early modern France, a period and a country which produced some of the earliest theorisations on equality. In so doing, it aims to contribute towards the development of the history of equality as an intellectual category within the history of political thought, and to situate the woman question within that history. The eleven chapters in the volume span the fields of political theory, philosophy, literature, history and history of ideas, bringing together literary scholars, historians, philosophers and scholars of political thought, and examining an extensive range of primary sources. Whilst most of the chapters focus on the conceptualisation of a moral, metaphysical or intellectual equality between the sexes, space is also given to concrete examples of a de facto gender equality in operation. The volume is aimed at scholars and graduate students of political thought, history of philosophy, womens history and gender studies alike. It aims to throw light on the history of Western ideas of equality and difference, questions which continue to preoccupy cultural historians, philosophers, political theorists and feminist critics.

Derval Conroy is Associate Professor of French at University College Dublin. Her research interests include women writers, the history of women in political thought, the history of feminisms and the history of equality, areas on which she has widely published. She is author of Ruling Women. Vol 1. Government, Virtue and the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century France; Vol 2. Configuring the Female Prince in Seventeenth-Century French Drama (2016).

Series Editors:

Harald E. Braun (University of Liverpool, UK) and Emily Michelson (University of St Andrews, UK)

SRS Board Members:

Erik DeBom (KU Leuven, Belgium), Mordechai Feingold (California Institute of Technology, USA), Andrew Hadfield (Sussex), Peter Mack (University of Warwick, UK), Jennifer Richards (University of Newcastle, UK), Stefania Tutino (UCLA, USA), Richard Wistreich (Royal College of Music, UK)

This series explores Renaissance and Early Modern Worlds of Knowledge (c.1400c.1700) in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. The volumes published in this series study the individuals, communities and networks involved in making and communicating knowledge during the first age of globalization. Authors investigate the perceptions, practices and modes of behaviour which shaped Renaissance and Early Modern intellectual endeavour and examine the ways in which they reverberated in the political, cultural, social and economic sphere.

The series is interdisciplinary, comparative and global in its outlook. We welcome submissions from new as well as existing fields of Renaissance Studies, including the history of literature (including neo-Latin, European and non-European languages), science and medicine, religion, architecture, environmental and economic history, the history of the book, art history, intellectual history and the history of music. We are particularly interested in proposals that straddle disciplines and are innovative in terms of approach and methodology.

The series includes monographs, shorter works and edited collections of essays. The Society for Renaissance Studies (http://www.rensoc.org.uk) provides an expert editorial board, mentoring, extensive editing and support for contributors to the series, ensuring high standards of peer-reviewed scholarship. We welcome proposals from early career researchers as well as more established colleagues.

Towards an Equality of the Sexes in Early Modern France

Edited by Derval Conroy

Euhemerism and Its Uses

The Mortal Gods

Edited by Syrithe Pugh

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Renaissance-and-Early-Modern-Worlds-of-Knowledge/book-series/ASHSER4043

First published 2021

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2021 selection and editorial matter, Derval Conroy; individual chapters, the contributors

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ISBN: 978-0-367-22492-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-27520-3 (ebk)

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