The changes in property distribution and social conditions brought about by the Revolution were less dramatic than its rhetoric suggested, but they were still substantial. Noble families were often surprisingly successful in restoring their landholdings in the years after the Terror, but nobles as a group never regained their privileged status. The Revolution opened many new opportunities to educated commoners, thereby creating a self-conscious bourgeoisie who would never again allow themselves to be reduced to subordinate status and a landowning peasantry that fiercely defended its interests and prevented an English style enclosure movement. The Revolution did not immediately put France on the road to a modern capitalist industrial economy--in fact, the disorder it caused set economic development back considerably--but revolutionary legal reforms, codified in 1804 in the Napoleonic Code, eliminated restrictions on the use of property inherited from the seigneurial system and cleared the way for further changes in the nineteenth century. By selling off church lands and confiscated noble properties, the Revolution caused a significant redistribution of wealth. The numerous landholding peasants became a distinctive component of France's social structure into the mid-twentieth century.

One of the Revolution's major social effects was a redefinition of gender roles. Men enjoyed many legal advantages over women in the Old Regime, starting with French law's prohibiting a woman from inheriting the throne; but the complex nature of privilege before 1789 allowed some women considerable prerogatives. Noblewomen had greater rights than male commoners', guild masters' widows could inherit and run their enterprises, and some women's guilds did exist. The Revolution's assault on the notion of special privilege raised the question of gender privileges, and some radicals, both female and male, argued that true equality between the sexes was a necessary consequence of the movement's principles. Women participated in revolutionary uprisings, and legislation such as the egalitarian divorce law passed in 1792 gave them increased rights. Other revolutionaries contended, however, that the equality of all males necessarily implied the subordination of all women. In 1793 the National Convention put itself firmly on the side of those who claimed that ''nature'' militated against any female participation in public affairs. In the Jacobin republic, women were to tend the home and raise patriotic children.

The Napoleonic period (1799-1815) was marked by a return to a more hierarchical social order, particularly with respect to gender. The Napoleonic Code deprived women of the right to own property in their own name and gave full control over the family to its male head. Poorer male citizens lost ground, too. Workers had to carry a livret, or work book, and could not change jobs without a favorable report from their previous employer; wealthy men could buy exemption from military service. Napoleon claimed that the Legion of Honor he created in 1802 did not mark a return to aristocracy, since any citizen could theoretically earn admission by outstanding service to the state and membership was not hereditary; but in 1808 he established a new nobility, rewarding his most loyal supporters with titles and landed estates. A highly centralized system of specialized national schools, begun during the revolutionary decade, was consolidated as a mechanism for training an educated elite for state service. The ''Napoleonic settlement'' guaranteed the land purchases made during the Revolution, but returned unsold noble properties to their original owners. Although he encouraged the growth of some industries, Napoleon still envisaged France as an essentially agricultural society, with the peasantry as the reservoir from which he would fill his army's ranks; the populations of some major cities actually fell during his reign. At the time of Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, it was not yet evident that France was launched on the processes of urbanization and industrialization that were to mark the nineteenth century.

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on Sociology at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to Sociology and other relevant topics.