Louis Marie Prudhomme

In the following viewpoint Louis Marie Prudhomme contends that while French women might be needed to help fight the counterrevolution (a movement against the French Revolution led by loyalists to King Louis XVI), they ultimately belong in the domestic, not political, sphere. He asserts that although women are entitled to the rights of citizenship and free speech, they have never shown a great passion for civil and political liberty and are not suited for politics. Prudhomme maintains that women are only happy when they are taking care of their families and teaching morals to their children. Prudhomme was a bookseller during the revolution and the publisher of the radical newspaper Revolutions of Paris.

Many women have complained to us about the Revolution. In numerous letters they report to us that for two years...