Marie Maugeret
| Marie Maugeret | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1844 Le Mans, France |
| Died | 1928 |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Known for | Christian feminism |
Marie Maugeret (1844-1928) was a French novelist and conservative Catholic who became a feminist and was active in promoting Christian feminism as an antidote to socialism.
Marie Maugeret came from Le Mans, Sarthe. She was born in 1844, daughter of a doctor, and was given a conventional girl's education at an Ursuline convent. She inherited an income that allowed her to live comfortably without working. She published several novels, a book of Pensées, and an attack on Martin Luther's Protestant movement, with a defense of Catholic orthodoxy as represented by the Jesuit Ignatius of Loyola. She founded the journal L'Echo littéraire de France, Sciences, arts, littérature in 1883 and directed a printing house in Paris.
Maugeret attended an international congress on women's rights in Paris in 1896. She disagreed with the positions of many of the attendees on subjects like birth control and divorce, but was in favor of improving the rights of women while conforming to conservative Catholic principles. She wanted to bring women who thought as she did into public life to defend the state against socialism and strengthen the role of the church.
Maugeret founded the Christian Feminism (Le Féminisme crétien) organization in 1896, and launched a magazine with the same name. She devoted the rest of her life to this cause. Maugeret's Christian feminism defended the family as the "basic social cell", and thought that mothers should stay at home, but fought for the rights of women who were forced to work. In 1901 the National Council of French Women (Conseil National des Femmes Français) was founded, headed by Sarah Monod. The majority of the members were moderate bourgeois republicans. The socialists led by Louise Saumoneau and Elisabeth Renaud were a tiny minority on the left of this movement. They were balanced by the Catholic Right led by Marie Maugeret.
In 1902 Maugeret founded the Fédération Jeanne d'Arc (Federation of Joan of Arc), which sponsored congresses of Catholic women's organizations. At these congresses Maugeret did whatever she could to gain a vote in favor of women's suffrage. She was supported by La Femme contemporaine, an anti-semitic and anti-Dreyfus newspaper.Joan of Arc was used as a symbol for women's emancipation that glossed over the fact that the church was officially opposed to women's suffrage. The annual Congrès Jeanne d'Arc was ostensibly concerned with working for Joan's canonization, but also discussed social concerns such as education, women's rights and women's working conditions. In 1906 it endorsed women's suffrage for a short period. The Joan of Arc movement was anti-Semitic and anti-republican. Christian feminists formed a national union of French women fighting the "Jewish peril" and freethought.
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