French Literature Reviews - 2026

Anne Verjus, Abolish the Patriarchy: The Feminist Utopia of James Henry Lawrence (1773–1840)
History, Politics and Society

Does anyone still remember James Henry Lawrence and his novel The Empire of the Nairs, a dream of a world where women are freed from dependence on men? Swimming against the tide of the social norms and laws of his time, Lawrence invents an unprecedented balance in gender roles: he envisions a world where women pass down property and family names, and shoulder the education of children entirely on their own.

How was this book born? What was its fate? What resonance did it spark at the time, and within which intellectual traditions can it be situated? This essay answers these questions and presents a fresh study of the author.

Through his critique of patriarchy and gender-based violence, and the methods he employs to address the challenges of freedom for both sexes, Lawrence proves to be astonishingly modern.

Anne Verjus, Senior Researcher at CNRS and specialist in the French Revolution, explores the mechanics of patriarchy through its two main pillars: marriage and fatherhood. From her earliest research, she has viewed scholarship as a lever for social transformation.

James Henry Lawrence wrote The Empire of the Nairs during a period when prevailing social norms and legal structures strictly subordinated women to men. His narrative imagines an alternative society where women hold property, transmit family names, and take sole charge of raising children. This work belongs to a long history of utopian literature that uses fictional societies to question contemporary political and domestic arrangements. Readers interested in early feminist thought and the intellectual history of gender roles may find this study relevant.

Anne Verjus is a senior researcher at the CNRS and a specialist in the French Revolution whose scholarship examines the mechanics of patriarchy. This volume investigates the historical origins and reception of Lawrence's novel, analyzing the two primary pillars of patriarchal systems identified as marriage and fatherhood. The text situates Lawrence within broader intellectual traditions and evaluates his critique of gender-based violence and his engagement with the challenges of freedom for both sexes.