French colonial policy preserved patriarchal authority over African women while abolishing slavery

Evidence

The point was not, as a ministerial circular explained, whether civil law was simply contrary to “our European civilization.” Rather, it was whether civil law was “immoral or illicit.” Most of the time, the minister suggested, civil law was neither. “It is for this reason that we will under no circumstance alter especially those essential rights that result from the husband’s authority over his wife, the father’s authority over his children or guardianship.” The subordinate status of African women would, in short, receive little attention from a local administration as patriarchal overseas as the republican government was in France. The only civil custom France was willing to suppress was slavery. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 300

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in republican ideology justifying empire — echoes the civilizing mission’s selective intervention logic.