Women of the French Revolution.

Women had won rights in marriage, property, and education. Though women were denied political rights during the revolution but during this time no women anywhere shared political power unlike the women of France. During the revolution women from the middle class greeted the restoration of their natural rights as wives and mothers to participate in society as a man's companion. Poor women or women from the Third Estate went on bread riots. The men in power feared women who challenged the Revolutions failure to guarantee bread for the poor. The women of the French Revolution were so feared they became legendary.

When Napoleon became emperor in 1804. He created the Napoleonic Code. Among some of these reforms were that women could not exercise the rights citizenship. Male heads of households now regained complete authority over their wives and children. Napoleon left the right to divorce with women, but this right was taken from them after 1815 by the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Women lost all the rights they gained during the revolution.