‘An individual of ill-defined type’ (‘Un individu d’un genre mal defini’): Hermaphroditism in Marriage Annulment Proceedings in Nineteenth-Century France

Gabrielle Houbre (1)

1 CERILAC (EA_4410) - Centre D'Etude et de Recherche Interdisciplinaire de l'UFR LAC

In the nineteenth century French tribunals repeatedly had to rule on requests for marriage annulments by husbands and wives complaining of having been deceived concerning the true sex of their spouses. The legal pretext – mistaken identity – was based on divergent interpretations of the sex of the offending spouse because of biological characteristics argued to be insufficiently clear to establish the sexual alterity required by the institution of marriage. Unusual and scandalous, these trials caused a great stir well beyond the localities in which they took place, as well as sparking open and sometimes heated debates between jurists and physicians. By evoking the details of these cases of marriage annulment and comparing the views of the judges and the medical practitioners with the attitudes of the subjects in question, this article aims to contribute to rethinking the fragility and porosity of the physical, social and symbolic boundaries between the sexes.

Mots clés: Hermaphrodite; Hermaphrodites; Hermaphroditism; Sex & gender; Courts of justice

Domaines: Histoire; Etudes sur le genre

Gabrielle Houbre. ‘An individual of ill-defined type’ (‘Un individu d’un genre mal defini’): Hermaphroditism in Marriage Annulment Proceedings in Nineteenth-Century France. Gender and History, 2015, 27 (1), pp.112-130. ⟨10.1111/1468-0424.12103⟩. ⟨hal-02455104⟩