Research Paper on:
Early Modern Society of France and Men's and Women's Status

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
to have had the opportunity to partake of Francois Poullain de la Barres Three Cartesian Feminist Treatises, thereby giving her the chance to debate with him the status of men  and women in early modern French society, one might readily surmise how gleefully overwhelmed and supportive she would have been with his argument. Responding with resounding defense, Bertrande -  as depicted in Natalie Zemon Davis The Return of Martin Guerre - would have likely helped him champion his cause, since she was quite a defiant, strong willed woman in  an era when such attributes were not readily accepted in the female gender. Even though her situation in sixteenth-century France may have reflected a bit more gender equality in  certain familial ways - "...the testaments in the area around Artigat rarely benefit one child but instead provide dowries for the daughters...(If there are only daughters, the property is divided  equally among them)" (Zemon Davis PG) - Bertrande would have experienced for herself the extent to which such inequity was ripe for challenge in relationship to the world that Poullain  experienced a century later. To say that women have had to fight for their existence within a patriarchal world would be a gross  understatement and one that would also be staunchly supported by the likes of both Bertrande de Rols and Francois Poullain de la Barre. Indeed, the road to female freedom  and self-expression in early modern French society was paved with patriarchal intolerance and characteristic skepticism so much so that women were forced to prove their worthiness within the stringent boundaries  of a male-dominated existence. Clearly, this perpetual assertion speaks volumes about the inherent fortitude that comprises the female spirit. Bertrande would have