By Tam'ara Mello
 

 In many pronatalist societies such as early colonial Canada and America, women's bodies are objectified to meet the demands of patriarchal ends.  Their bodies are a place of political power and social control.  "All women are socially defined as mothers or potential mothers.  Now woman achieves her full position in society until she gives birth to a child...In this way, motherhood under patriarchy is virtually compulsory." (Roberts, 311)  It seems to be the case that in societies where there is a ruling majority, minority women shoulder the burden of reproduction like an armor that cannot be removed. 
In the case of French women who, in the mid seventeenth century, were transported across many oceans to come to New France to find husbands and populate the settlement, reproduction was not optional, it was a mandate. They were to be 'queens of the household', in accordance to the Church, and their primary responsibility was in bearing and rearing children.   
 Filles du roi, or daughters of the King, were "young women of marriageable age and capable of bearing children are so called because their transportation and settlement expenses, as well as the dowry for some of them, were assumed by the royal treasury....The term Filles du roi implies that these immigrants are the wards of Louis the XIV and that as their protector, he assume the duties of their natural father in taking care of them and providing them with dowry." (www.vmnf...)  These women immigrated to New France between 1663-1673 for the purpose of marrying men who had come to New France to settle the land and populate the countryside. In exchange for their bodies in service, French women received dowries between 50 and 100 livre to help pay for and start their new families.    These women had to be strong and willing to bear many children in order to be adequate charges of the King.  "Large families were the rule in New France, six or seven children on average; among the minor nobility, even greater numbers of children were not uncommon-they were the pretext for obtaining land grants from the crown." (Boulaine,10)  
 French-Canadian women were seen primarily for their reproductive value.  They had the potential to populate the country with enough people to fulfill the Catholic Church's declaration that "the very fact of their existence as people was long regarded by French-Canadians as a miracle, proof that God especially favored them.  The view of themselves as the new chosen people." (Boulaine, 10)  This view gave French-Canadians a strong sense of cultural preservation and pride in their existence.  It was the view of the Church that women be responsible for this preservation by instilling French cultural values in their children from the time of birth. "...women's bodies were tools in the fight for survival." (Boulaine, 11) This in and of itself was a heavy burden to place on French-Canadian women, on top of their other duties as daughters, colonists, religious bodies, etc. The Church believed that French-Canadian women are "the guardians of all that made for French-Canadian cultural superiority in North America: they held the key to the survival of religion, morality, education, and the family." (Boulaine, 10)   However, "In practice, the mother was responsible for education; to begin with, she was the source of the child's knowledge of language...the mother's gentle intelligence was sufficient to teach the child language, but it was not capable of instilling the higher power of distinguishing fundamental truths." (Boulaine, 11)  Although French-Canadian women were revered for their role as mother, these were denounced as being intellectual and logical inferiors to their men.  Their role was to uphold the culture created by the men of New France, not to have any part in defining that culture.  They were celebrated for their reproductive and childrearing worth, leaving them without merit in higher issues of cultural definition.
 Another detrimental view held by the Church and subsequent French-Canadian culture was that women should be seen and not heard.  More specifically, "like guardian angels, women can rule the world-but only while remaining as invisible as the angels." (Boulaine, 11)  What were these silent women supposed to be doing invisibly? Bearing as many children as she possibly can.  "Should she fall from this summit, however, she incurred heavier penalties than a man would because she sinned against "a vraie grandeur: la maternite san tache.""(Boulaine, 12)  Here lies proof that the French-Canadian Catholic Church saw women primarily for their reproductive capacity and little else.  
 "Women are present in traditional Quebec history, and almost all of them are depicted as figures worthy of emulation...As lay women, they embody the myth of French Canadian mother-devoted, humble, generous and pious-virtually to the point of self-immolation." (Boulaine, 10)The myth of the pious and pure French-Canadian women has also been problematic.  "If they stopped behaving in the prescribed manner, if they cease to embody all the ideal characteristics not only of French Canada but of humanity itself, they would bring down the social order in ruin about their heads." (Boulaine, 10) French-Canadian women received a lot of pressure to uphold their status as women of the Catholic faith.  These women were "supposed to be helpmates to their husbands and perhaps, even more importantly, to sustain their religious faith when it faltered, motherhood remained the primordial role of women."(Boulaine, 11)  French-Canadian women were expected to be docile and passive while taking nothing for themselves and being in a state of servitude to her people and community.
 This experience is somewhat parallel to the plight of Black women under slavery in the United States and in the present.  Furthermore, "Although French-Canadians did not experience outright slavery, the subjection of women to hard physical labor and constant childbearing parallels the situation of Black American women." (Bystydzienski, 15)  As most everyone knows, the enslavement of Black people is a benchmark of shame in United States history.  This period of time was particularly tumultuous for the women of the country, specifically the slave women.  "The experience of Black women during slavery provide the most brutal examples of the denial of autonomy over reproduction.  Female slaves were commercially valuable to their masters not only for their labor but also for their capacity to produce more slaves."(Roberts, 310) Much like the early French-Canadian women, Black women were exploited for the monetary worth of their reproductive capacity.  However, the benefactor of reproductive dividends under slavery was not the woman as it was in French-Canada.  It was for the sole benefit of the white masters to breed slave women like animals.  They could receive money for their offspring and free labor to increase their personal and cultural status. Black women were used to perpetuate the white race while disseminating their own.  Slavery was one of the main avenues to achieving a strong white cultural framework via the wombs of Black women.  The wombs of French-Canadian women were used to strengthen their own race.
 In child rearing, Black women were forced to raise white children as 'mammies' while their own children were denied the basic right to suckle from their mother's breast.  They were instead given the job of grooming their master's children to be good citizens of the United States.  Their own children were sold into other families where they would be nursed and raised by communities of slaves unknown to the Black child.  French-Canadian mothers were given the job of grooming their own children to be good citizens of New France/Canada. However, women's role of mother as a legitimate job was not recognized by either society.  
 Although French-Canadian women were required to reproduce to populate the colony, they were not forced to do so in manner so brutal and dehumanizing as the experience of Black slave women. "White masters, therefore, could increase their wealth by controlling their slaves' reproductive capacity-by rewarding pregnancy; punishing slave women who did not bear children; forcing them to breed; and raping them."(Roberts, 310)  There was no protection for Black women against sexual exploitation because they were not seen as citizens or even human.  Their ill treatment was embedded in the fabric of society, just as the role of French-Canadian women as upholders of morality was deeply sewn into the fabric of early Canadian society.
 While there was a system of reward and punishment in place for French-Canadian women in their reproduction, there was only a system of severe punishment for those Black slave women who could not reproduce.  In fact, French-Canadian women received payment for children before they even gave birth; the promise of children to come was good enough for the King.  "Even the poorest of girls could count on good that, even if they don't belong to her at the time of the engagement, will come, one day, to enrich the estate of the family that she is preparing to start." (www.vmnf...)
 In French-Canadian society, women were seen as chattel that were to bear the burden of motherhood and family.  Up until the eighth century, the Catholic Church justified this premise because women were though not to have souls.  However after this time, the Church still looked to the Bible to qualify their ideas about motherhood.  Motherhood was seen as a women's divine, saintly duty to rectify the actions of their foremother, Eve.  "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and was in sin.  Yet women will be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with modesty." (Boulaine, 12)  This view portrays motherhood as punishment for Eve's hand in causing the Fall.  The Catholic Church was able to use the Bible to support their patriarchal ideas that women are supposed to reproduce to perpetuate the race.  On the same token, the Bible has been used to explain why Black women should not reproduce.  White people in early American history believed that they were the master race sent to this Earth to propagate their own race and tame the barbarous non-white others.  In this view, it is not just Black women who are seen as chattel, but the entire race of Black people.  That would explain how the entire concept and subsequent practice of slavery evolved.  Given these faulty interpretations of the Bible, it would stand to reason that people question the biblical assessments of motherhood, or at least the human translations of motherhood into practical application.
 There are some interesting parallels between conceptions of French-Canadian and Black motherhood.  While French-Canadian mothers are seen as pious and respectable, Black mothers are seen as wanton and loose.  In the bible, the story of Jezebel is a prime example of this idea.  "The ideological construct of the licentious Jezebel legitimated white men's sexual abuse of black women and defined black women as the opposite of the ideal mother.  Jezebel contradicted the prevailing image of the True Woman, who was virtuous, pure and white."(Roberts, 311)  These are two sides of the same poisonous coin.  On the one hand, French-Canadian motherhood was created after this image of white purity which is supposed to be a positive image.  However, not only does it provides a body of evidence against Black women as the contrary party, but it confines French-Canadian (white) women to an inflexible code of conduct.  If a French-Canadian woman is to stray from the saintly institution of motherhood, she is ostracized for blasphemous behavior.  If a Black woman is to prove herself a good mother to her own children, she is dismissed as an exception to a deep-seated rule.
 After slavery ended, Black women were discouraged and condemned for having children on their own.  It seemed that white society deemed Black people invaluable unless they were on the auction block.  "The value society places on individuals determines whether it sees them as entitled to perpetuate themselves in their children.  Denying a woman the right to bear children deprives her of a basic part of her humanity.  Patriarchy values white women primarily for their procreative capacity, but it denies Black women even this modicum of value.  Black women are deemed not even worthy of the dignity of childbearing.  Discouraging Black procreation is also a means of subordinating the entire race; under patriarchy, it is accomplished through the regulation of Black women's fertility."(Roberts, 311)  White society did not see Black people as having a valuable cultural experience that needed to be continued.  Black people had been estranged from their cultures through slavery, and post-slavery, Black people were discouraged from recovering what was lost through the strength of the race, or even creating a new cultural identity divorced from the shackles of slavery.
 If Black women were not allowed to be mothers to their own children, what values were imposed on them by white society?  According to bell hooks, "black presence in early North American society allowed whites to sexualize their world by projecting onto black bodies a narrative of sexualization dissociated from whiteness...the black female body that forced to serve as "an icon for black sexuality in general"."(62)  Through Black women, white men were allowed to project their sexual deviances while denying themselves party to their own thoughts and actions.  They could blame Black women for their sexual liaisons with them which were often unwelcome and unwanted.  However, Black women were not supposed to reproduce Black children, which is a natural result of sex,  Black women were supposed to be without desire or means to reproduce.  They were supposed to service white men sexually, and do so in silence.
 It is evident that patriarchy has taken the liberty to impose whatever sanctions or values on motherhood that it has seen fit.  French-Canadian people are seen as valuable to the world population and so their reproductive value is higher than that of the inner city black teenager who wants nothing more than to have a child to invent her own sense of self-worth.  "An unwed black teenage, for example, may experience motherhood as a rare source of self-affirmation, while society deems her motherhood to be illegitimate and deviant.  She may experience caring for her child as a determined struggle against harsh circumstances, while society sees in her mothering a pathological perpetuation of poverty." (Roberts, 308)  This conveys a clear message that Black people are not welcome to populate the continent as their purpose (enslavement) has long since passed.  To continue to have more children only worsens the undaunting situation of poverty that Black people in America face today.  However, French-Canadians have the advantage of being on their home turf where they are welcomed to populate as they please.  But large families are no longer encouraged as they once were, they are mostly discouraged in the present.
 Throughout history, men have placed reproductive demands upon women that are unrealistic and inhumane. Women's bodies are not solely made for reproductive purposes.  Women have souls and minds of their own that generally do not care to meet the reproductive quotas of the patriarchy.  Both French-Canadian and Black women understand the value of their reproductive bodies in terms of money, prestige and power.  In both cases, those gains were not personally amassed, but patriarchal and political investments.  
 

Bibliography
Boulaine, Gretchen Richter. Variations on Theme: the Image of the Mother in Traditional French-Canadian History. Department of History, SUNY/Buffalo. pp. 10-12.

Bystydzienski, Jill M. Minority Women of North America: A Comparison of French-Candian and Afro-American Women. Le FAROG Forum, avril 1988., pp. 15-17.

hooks, bell. Black Looks. South End Press, Boston; 1992.

Roberts, Dorothy E. Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood. in, Feminist Theory. Mary F. Rogers, ed. McGraw-Hill, Boston; 1998., pp. 308-311.
http://www.wmnf.civilization.ca/popul/filles/.