Julie Hardwick, "Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789" (Oxford UP, 2020)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Oct 13, 2020 · 1h

Young women and men sought out each other’s company in the workshops, cabarets, and streets of Old Regime Lyon, and evidence of these relationships lingers in documents and material objects conserved in Lyon’s municipal and departmental archives. How did young workers spend time together? When would they initiate sexual relationships outside of marriage? What resources did they marshal to manage pregnancy and childbirth, and what kind of support might they expect from their neighbors, employers, and families? In paternity suits, young women provided direct answers to these questions, and left…