This groundbreaking study examines complex notions of paternity and fatherhood in modern France through the lens of contested paternity. Drawing from archival judicial records on paternity suits, paternity denials, deprivation of paternity, and adoption, from the end of the eighteenth century through the twentieth, Rachel G. Fuchs reveals how paternity was defined and how it functioned in the culture and experiences of individual men and women. She addresses the competing definitions of paternity and of families, how public policy toward paternity and the family shifted, and what...

With gender as its central focus, this book offers a transnational, multi-faceted understanding of citizenship as legislated, imagined, and exercised since the late eighteenth century. Framed around three crosscutting themes - agency, space and borders - leading scholars demonstrate what historians can bring to the study of citizenship and its evolving relationship with the theory and practice of democracy, and how we can make the concept of citizenship operational for studying past societies and cultures.

The essays examine the past interactions of women and men with public...