Lifestyle and education in France, in the 50s/60s.
Five years after the Second World War, French families are still in shock. Many men have been killed on the front lines, and their wives are now headed by a large family, the vast majority of them.In the 1950s, marriage was a social franchise.
After the chaos of the World War II which overthrew all the pillars of pre-war civilization, this was a guarantee of stability that a society, "that struggled to recognize itself in the mirror could not do without." Consequently, marriage was given almost sacred importance, and divorce, legal since the 'Naquet law' of 1884, was a tragedy to be avoided at all costs - especially, of course, when one was a woman. Because the women were then raised with the sole objective of becoming wives, of going from the imperfect status of "miss" to a "madam" much more respectable. In the middle of the 20th century, the importance of women in society as well as their family role will then rock. Indeed, the Second World War is one of the main causes of this change: Women had to learn to live without men and thus provide for their children, alone. We are therefore facing a radical change, from the housewife who waits for her husband and who takes care of her children, to the liberated, independent woman after the war, working on the same task as her husband.
In France, since the introduction of the Civil Code (also known as the 'Napoleon Code'), in 1804, the wife had in the family a rank different from the current situation. Indeed, the woman was considered "minor", she therefore did not have the right to make decisions by herself concerning her, and even less decisions relating to children, therefore subordinate to the "chief of the family". This notion disappeared belatedly in France in 1970: the law provides that from now on "the two spouses together ensure the moral and material direction of the family": parental authority replaces paternal power. Domestic society is no longer regarded as a hierarchical community in which the husband holds power, owing to an alleged natural superiority. The family can no longer be this unequal organic community, but an egalitarian society where man and woman are united by contract.
Some key dates:
1965: The wife can exercise a professional activity without the authorization of her husband.
1972: Law establishing the principle of equal wages.
1983: 'Roudy law' on professional equality between men and women.
Even if the role and status of women AND children will considerably evolve and be modified during the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, isolated communities will persist in the family pattern described below.
In the years 1950-1960, the only means of union was marriage. Most often "the traditional couple" was the union of two people uniting to bring together two family heritage, it was an economic institution that was not based on love, the woman took care of the house maintenance and the education of the children. The man, works for the family, outside and has full authority.
Couples got married early and rarely divorced. Most families are made up of at least 4 children and may even reach 10 for some. (Contraception was almost non-existent - Legalization of the pill in 1967 'Neuwirth law' - and illegal abortion until the 'Veil law', introduced in 1975). The father works exhausting working days of more than ten hours in arduous conditions. The mother takes care of her children, the home and all the tasks that a house requires to be done. The role of the mother tends to be severe and to apply strict, concise rules for keeping order at home. Give them an education, that is to say, values specific to the family, which will allow them to develop fully (or not) in their life.
Children with little or no school education, worked, often from the age of 14. Generally, they give part or all of their salary to their parents. They have no right to discuss parental decisions and if they dare to challenge or revolt in any way, the situation often results in severe and disproportionate sanctions such as spanking, slapping and beatings belts and 'martinet' (Whip with leather or rope straps). In no case they have the possibility to choose or express a contrary opinion without fear of the anger of the patriarch. The smallest decisions are decided and imposed by their parents. As for their future, already traced, generally follows the path of their father, most often at the factory or in the fields.
This strict education can be explained on the one hand, due to a lack of financial means, but in particular, to an "ambition" which, at the time was from their point of view, necessarily restricted/inaccessible. Indeed, most parents did not imagine that their children could be able to rise above their condition (therefore that they were doing a different job). This did not mean that this reflected the personal desire of the child, who probably saw a completely different path than the one that was going to be imposed on him.
This way of life was not adopted only in the family home, the school also applied heavy and rigid rules. Humiliation was a means of pressure on children; when one of them made a mistake, a donkey's cap could be put on the head, they were sent to the corner condemned to stay sometimes standing for hours and isolated from the rest of the class. The comfort that can be found in today's classes was totally different. In the old schools, a stove heated this one, sometimes the children were of wood chore. Indeed, each in turn, they were designated to arrive earlier in order to fill the inkwells, clean the tables, the stamps ... Hervé Hamon, who is a former teacher but also a writer during an interview in 2004, spoke about the school in the 1950s.
“At the time, there were corporal bullying, like rulings or spanking […] the general supervisor was often an “alcoholic bully”. Nowadays this education could be described as unacceptable and would cause scandal."
However, and as I mentioned above, the mother is only "the subordinate" of her husband and does nothing but follow the instructions that he asks him to carry out. Paternal authority at the time was fully respected (and feared). In the 1950s, a child therefore had few freedoms and few responsibilities. The mother, present in the home, could keep an eye on everyone and supervise them even if she did not do it constantly because of her daily work to be accomplished and the confidence which she established in her children. Regarding pocket money, it was reserved for wealthy families. For poor or less well-off families, this was rare and most often non-existent. Family outings were just as rare, except for a few cinema shows.
Up Previously, the child was mainly thought of in relation to the adult while today he is considered as a subject in his own right with real skills from a cognitive, social and emotional point of view.
"Let it be said: the youth of the baby boomers hardly resembled that of their children and even less that of their grandchildren, who had become “kings children” thanks to all the social transformations of the 1960s - 1970s to the consumer society, the rise in living standards, the collapse of authority and the advent of a few Françoise Dolto ..."
"Because in the 1950s, we were not allowed to speak at the table or give our opinion, the master (father) did not want to "hear a fly", we entered class in pairs, dressed in a compulsory blouse. The designer Jean-Paul Gautier who, at 7 years old, had drawn a girl in fishnet stockings with feathers on her head, was invited to walk around the school with his drawing pinned on the back: certainly, for him, shame expected turned into glory with his friends ..."
"The period studied in all the details (accommodation, school, leisure and holidays ...) is in all respects a pivotal period: it was from the 1960s that bathtubs appeared in all homes, that 'Thierry la Fronde' and the 'Piste aux étoiles' invite themselves in families, that disappear at school on stage and other rulers on the fingers, that children will be entitled to their fashion and their Legos and that some may discover the joys of winter sports ... This story of a close past and yet already distant will not fail to arouse some nostalgia."
Consequences of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and societal vision of a "bastard" child (recognized or illegitimate).
Legitimate filiation is filiation (transmission of kinship) which characterizes children conceived or born while their parents were united by marriage.
"Bastard/Bâtard" Definition: Who was born to parents whose union is not recognized by law (by marriage) Synon. natural, illegitimate.
1) Simple bastard. Born to parents none of whom is married.
2) Adulterous bastard. Born to parents of which at least one is married.
Indeed, a child legitimized by a marital union and recognized by the husband but born of a different father is always considered a bastard in the eyes of society.
Socially rejected and individually badly accepted because it demonstrated the non-observance of certain fundamental norms of the society, the illegitimate pregnancy was formerly often lived under the most unfavorable conditions. Children born out of wedlock, described as “illegitimate”, are marginalized within the institutional universe as well as in society as a whole. The secrecy surrounding a birth out of wedlock is such that this is almost impossible for the mother to raise her child herself.
As for the child, tenacious popular beliefs until the 1950s attributed to him "flaws, inclinations to the vices inherited from his parents - natural", and a particular fragility in terms of health. For the latter, the weight prejudice constitutes a serious handicap.
"Bastard !" This is often what identity the so-called "illegitimate" child was reduced to. Marked by social discrimination, lost in family history, his/her speech was not audible. Despite this discredit, he/she had to build himself. The importance of the environment which gave birth to him, whether physical, social or legal, was crucial for his future. From genealogies of the modern era to more recent monographs, bastards are generally considered according to a model of exclusion. When they are not simply evaded, they are evoked separately from legitimate children. The legal irregularity of their birth influenced this way of thinking of the bastard as a being naturally distinct from the siblings to which he belongs.
The fact that the child often lives with his maternal grandparents materializes that the mother is, or remains, in the eyes of his parents and probably of the community, more a daughter than a mother. It is not surprising since the will and the authority of the grandparents prevail. The mother’s relationships with her own parents are crucial to the child's future. Paying "the error of youth" indicates the predominance of "fault", of the social outlook on acceptance and the individual outlook of a father or a mother on his daughter. In the eyes of the community, and this until the early sixties, the child born out of wedlock, the "bastard", embodies the fault and his mother is associated with a "whore". This fault reappears on the whole family and in one way or another engages the extended family. Revealing ties of parentage, alliance and brotherhood, pregnancy and birth will test intergenerational ties. Families will be torn apart and others will be united. Rejected, excluded or even mocked, the illegitimate child bears, during his life, the indelible mark of the shameful circumstances of his birth, his presence within the family constituting a proof of the infamy and dishonor. Concealed or abandoned, he is subjected to the unfair sanctions of a crime he did not commit, the unfavorable provisions of common law and denominational laws.
General consequences of family secrets
'Festen', the exemplary film by Thomas Vinterberg, illustrates wonderfully what defines a family secret: a common knowledge which is not shared with other members of the tribe. No one ever knows who exactly knows what. Also, it creates a particular dynamic within the group and generates heavy conflicts, family and individual, which have repercussions on several generations. All families harbor secrets. Big or small, they always have consequences. Their seriousness lies in "the importance of secrecy, but also in the insistence on preserving it. When the family clan silences an event, communicating becomes ultimately impossible. This is how, bearers of our hidden past, of our missing bits of memory, family secrets become the silent masters of many destinies.
However, we have to break away from a certain number of errors surrounding the concept of family secrecy. First of all, a family secret is not only something that is not said, since of course we do not say everything at all times. It concerns both hidden content and a prohibition on saying and even understanding that there can be something in a family that is the subject of a secret. In addition, the vast majority of secrets are not organized around culpable or shameful events as is often believed. The famous "faults of our ancestors" are only a very minimal source of family secrets. Most of them are in fact organized around trauma experienced by a generation and incompletely symbolized by it. It can be private trauma, such as mourning, but also collective trauma, such as a war or a natural disaster.
These events did not receive verbal formatting, but they were always partially symbolized in the form of gestures and attitudes and, sometimes also, of images shown or told as a family. Indeed, symbolization is not only verbal. This is also sensorimotor, through gestures, attitudes, facial expressions, and this is also imaged through constructed or only imagined images. These partial symbolizations can, in the case of painful events, translate in the parents by silences or enigmatic remarks, crying or anger without apparent reason, completely incomprehensible for their children.
We know that the family context of the Villemin-Jacob-Bolle-Laroche clans is marred by various shameful and painful events and secrets - bastard child, incest, suicide, mistreatment ... - some of which were revealed at times and under different conditions; and others, which seem to still exist. First, those who perhaps we ignore because of the silence of Albert and Monique, and then the obvious secrets held by the Bolle family.
To go back to the origins of secrets, before contraception, and at the time when marriage was more or less forced, many children were conceived with a different parent than their official father. This is also why the Napoleon code decided that we were not going to ask the question. It was to ensure the peace of households. In this logic, no child should ask who was his/her parent. If the legislator has decided that the question should not be asked, because it is actually asked very often. Families were undermined by secrets. Suddenly, questioning his parents about his origins is also often questioning them about a family logic of secrecy which marked the childhood of their parents and grandparents. Things only really started to change in the 1970s - 1980s, with the evolution of customs.
Family secrets are based on two sources: prohibition and fear/shame. The most common concern origins, death, illness, sexuality, moral order and legal issues. Fortunately, some secrets are no longer there: the shameful 'daughters-mothers' are now accepted single-parent families, and adulterous children are no longer called "bastards". Conversely, other secrets, fraught with consequences, cross the ages: a stillborn child, a usurped identity, or incest, which remains the intransgressable act, based on the Oedipal myth.
A distinctive sign of family secrecy: the longevity. The first generation that holds the secret is too ashamed to admit it.
The second guesses the unspeakable, but dares not lift the taboo. The child of the unspeakable generation very often overhears conversations, confabulations. He/She knows there is something to know. As for the third, it sometimes bears the stigma of inappropriate, often toxic behavior. Each of us may, at one time or another, have heard of a family secret, those unsaid which are sometimes transmitted from generation to generation, and which can weigh as much on the holders of the secret as on those who ignore it. Beyond the secrets of which we are aware, there are still secrets which we are completely unaware of, but which nevertheless marked the history of the family. Even if we don't realize it, they too can have an influence, direct or indirect, on our current life.
Frequently the the secret holder found it too heavy and told someone about it. Of course, by confiding the secret to him, he could ask his interlocutor not to tell anyone about it. But maybe that person also found the secret too heavy to bear and thought they were going to tell someone else. And so on. If it separates those who know from those who do not know, the secret unites those who know. Around a secret, the solidarity of a subgroup is created to protect it. Total isolation is unbearable for anyone, so there are few cases where the secret holder is truly alone. We often discover when the secrets are revealed, an uncle, an aunt, a godmother..., who knew. This is how it happens that events which are supposed to be secret in a family, and of which nobody dares to speak, are in reality known by several members of the family. Furthermore, the closer people are to the secret holder, the more they feel caught in the solidarity of the group of those who remain silent, the less they allow themselves to speak. On the other hand, the more informed people are outside the family nucleus, the more they feel free to speak. The bearer of secrecy, in fact, is primarily concerned with protecting himself from the stigma or shame that would befall him.
Because of their education, their customs, our ancestors may have felt shame at certain events. So each time we ask ourselves if this is not shame that makes us suffer in the end rather than the secret himself ? Each time, this is important to ask yourself: where does this shame come from? The event or a bad image of yourself, of others?
Silence and shame on certain aspects of family history make communication impossible within the clan, create transmission faults, prevent real thinking about parentage and anchoring in its roots. This is how family secrets can constrain destinies and that certain subjects will be their lifetime, the toy of conscious/unconscious family orders. So wanting to hide from one's children the mistakes that one could make contributes not only to the exclusion of part of his life, but also to imprison them in the need to conform to excessive ideals.
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