Marriage and social constraints in 16th c. France

  Natalie Zemon Davis examines, among other things, the significance of identity in the 16^th century in The Return of Martin Guerre.  As Arnaud du Tilh (AKA “Pansette,” and later known as “Martin”) bluffs his way through the story, we also get a look at peasant life and character of 16^th century litigation.  By examining primarily two different accounts of the 1561 trial which followed the exposure of “Martin” as an imposter, Davis looks explores rural life, marriage (the importance peasants placed on marriage), family roles, criminal courts, and Protestantism in her work.  Although the author maybe doesn’t go as far as she maybe could have gone into some of these topics, she does dive into the marriage customs and the social constraints women faced as she examines Bertrande de Rols’s life and condition.  Peasant women apparently had little room to maneuver - an example the author points out is that the particle “de” signaled the legal and social attachment of female peasants to their male family members.  Bertrande was “de Rols” where father was simply Rols.  In her lifetime, Bertrande was subordinated to her father first, then to her husband(s), and finally to her widowed mother and uncle (turned step father)… before returning to her original husband.  So it seems, in a way, that Arnaud du Tilh represented a way for Bertrande to modify that life… or that Bertrande jumped at the chance to exercise agency in a male dominated society.  This is where conjecture and “perhaps” comes into play, and no doubt the author at time gives her opinion as possible reality: “Bertrande dreamed of a husband and a lover who would come back, and be different.” (p.34)   Beyond the examination of marriage, and its economic and social importance, and the look at 16^th c. litigation / courts in France, ultimately I think this is a book about struggle:  a village divided between Arnaud du Tihl and Pierre Guerre, and how that struggle divided the young and old, sons and fathers, mothers and daughters, Catholics and Protestants, and in the end, du Tihl and Martin Guerre, and how that struggle may have represented a chance for a young woman to have some say over the condition and direction of her life.