Politics Courting La Citoyenne In Le Courier De L Hymen

Personals and Politics: Courting la citoyenne in Le courier de l’hymen “Personals and Politics: Courting la citoyenne in Le courier de l’hymen” was an article written by author and teacher Jennifer M. Jones in 2001. She is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University and is a Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences’ Honors Program. Her essay discusses the concept of courtship and marriage and how it evolved from the time of the aristocratic Old Regime of France to the new and more contemporized society of eighteenth century France. Jones discusses how revolutionized eighteenth century France brought about many changes, including the way that courtship and marriage functioned. Marriage no longer operated under the control of parents

Although revolutionary, this new change in structure came with a collective anxiety and confusion on how society in the eighteenth century could make the new and more intimate version of marriage and courtship function smoothly. I believe that the overall thesis of this essay, as well as the answer to everyone’s anxiety at that time, can be understood through the quote, “how would they be able to tell a virtuous suitor from a dissipated roué, the woman of their dreams from the Old Regime nightmare… They would do so by reading – by partaking of a new form of commercialized courtship found in the pages of the Le courier de l’hymen” (Jones, 174). Therefore, according to Jones, the answer to the new version of courtship and marriage could be found in the French journal, Le courier de l’hymen, and other works of fiction from that time

I understood how the economy played a role in the concept of courtship and marriage when it came to a dowry or a woman’s desire to choose a man based on income and property. However, it just felt as though the marriage system was progressing so much socially in the eighteenth century, but the profits of the new system still only benefitted those with money. To expound upon that notion, “many of the men and women who advertised cam from a prosperous commercial milieu… They owned shops and collected rent” (Jones, 177). So, if this article was explaining the revolutionary new changes of the marriage system, the progress that society made when it came to breaking down the social walls only went as far as how much money one had to spend on advertising