The New Paternalism: The Civil Code

As part of his restoration of order, Napoleon brought a paternalistic model of power to his state. He successfully established a new Civil Code, completed in 1804. Called the Napoleonic Code as a way of further exalting the emperor’s image, it reasserted the Old Regime’s patriarchal system of male domination over women and insisted on a father’s control over his children, which revolutionary legislation had limited. For example, a child under age sixteen who refused to follow his or her father’s commands could be sent to prison for up to a month with no hearing of any sort. Still, the Civil Code protected many of the gains of the French Revolution by defining and ensuring property rights, guaranteeing religious liberty, and establishing a uniform system of law that provided equal treatment for all adult males and affirmed the right of men to choose their professions.

Although the code maintained the equal division of family property between all children, both male and female, it sharply curtailed women’s rights in other respects. Napoleon wanted to restrict women to the private sphere of the home. The law obligated a husband to support his wife, but the husband alone controlled any property held in common; a wife could not sue in court, sell or mortgage her own property, or contract a debt without her husband’s consent. Divorce was severely restricted. A wife could petition for divorce only if her husband brought his mistress to live in the family home. In contrast, a wife convicted of adultery could be imprisoned for up to two years. The code’s framers saw these discrepancies as a way to reinforce the family and make women responsible for private virtue, while leaving public decisions to men. Not until 1965 did French wives gain legal status equal to that of their husbands.

Napoleon took little interest in girls’ education, believing that girls should spend most of their time at home learning religion, manners, and such “female occupations” as sewing and music. For boys, by contrast, the government set up a new system of lycées, state-run secondary schools in which students wore military uniforms and drumrolls signaled the beginning and end of classes. The lycées offered wider access to education and thus helped achieve Napoleon’s goal of opening careers to those with talent, regardless of their social origins. (The lycées have dropped the military trappings and are now coeducational, but they are still the heart of the French educational system.)

The new paternalism extended to relations between employers and employees. The state required all workers to carry a work card attesting to their good conduct, and it prohibited all workers’ organizations. After 1806, arbitration boards settled labor disputes, but they took employers at their word while treating workers as minors, demanding that foremen and shop superintendents represent them. The limitations on workers’ rights won Napoleon the support of French business.