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One of the lesser known achievements of the French Revolution were the groundbreakingly progressive family laws:

Stephanie Coontz said:
The revolutionary government in France made divorce the most accessible it would be until 1975 and also abolished the legal penalties for homosexual acts. Such penalties ran contrary to the Enlightenment principles that the state should remain aloof from people's private lives. "Sodomy violates the rights of no man" said Condorcet...

During the 1790s the French revolutionaries redefined marriage as a freely chosen civil contract, abolished the right of fathers to imprison children to compel obedience, mandated equal inheritance for daughters and sons, and even challenged the practice of denying inheritance rights to illegitimate children, the cornerstone of property rights for thousands of years... A revolutionary slogan proclaimed proudly: "There are no bastards in France".

Alas, like many of the revolutions achievements, they were short lived:

Although Napoleon repealed France's liberal divorce law in the early 1800s, he reaffirmed the decriminalization of homosexuality... The Napoleonic code of 1804 prohibited wives in France from signing contracts, trading property, or opening bank accounts in their own names.

So, what if these laws had stuck? How would gender, family, and society -- in France, Europe, and the world -- be changed in the 19th Century?

(quotes are taken from Marriage: A History by Stephanie Coontz)
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