PARIS — With nary a kiss to the hand nor tears of parting, the French
government this week bids adieu to “Mademoiselle.”
In a memo addressed to state administrators across France, Prime Minister
François Fillon ordered the honorific — akin to “damsel” and the equivalent of
“miss” — banished from official forms and registries. The use of
“mademoiselle,” he wrote, made reference “without justification nor necessity”
to a woman’s “matrimonial situation,” whereas “monsieur” has long signified
simply “sir.”
The choice of mademoiselle, madame or monsieur appears
most everywhere one gives one’s name in France: opening a bank account,
shopping on the Internet or paying taxes, for instance.
Mr. Fillon’s order, signed on Tuesday, came after an
advocacy campaign of several months by two French feminist organizations, “Osez
le féminisme!” (“Dare to be feminist!”) and Les
Chiennes de Garde (The Watchdogs). The government minister Roselyne
Bachelot-Narquin, whose portfolio includes questions of “social cohesion,”
pleaded the groups’ case with Mr. Fillon.
“You’ve never wondered why we don’t call a single man
‘mondamoiseau,’ or even, ‘young male virgin?’ ” the feminist groups ask on
a joint Web
site. “Not surprising: this sort of distinction is reserved for women.”
Magali de Haas, a spokeswoman for “Osez le féminisme!,”
expressed the hope that, in time, private organizations would also drop
“mademoiselle” and that the term would fall out of popular use.
The niceties of the French language are monitored and
debated by an august institution, the Académie Française, which typically
operates on a time scale commensurate with its venerability and has yet to
offer comment. Nor have all Frenchwomen rejoiced at news of the change, given
not only long tradition but also widespread disdain for more avid strains of
feminism, deemed to lack sufficient appreciation for the joys offered by the
differences between the sexes.
Men are often called “jeune homme,” or “young man,”
through their 20s, and not “monsieur,” Ms. de Haas noted. She suggested a
similar distinction be made between the “young woman” (“jeune femme”) and more
senior “madame,” thus avoiding “mademoiselle,” a term that harkens to notions
of female subjugation, she said.
As early as 1690, the terms “mademoiselle” and
“demoiselle” were used to signify “unmarried female,” according to the French National Center for Textual
and Lexical Resources. “Mademoiselle” entered into official use under
Napoleon I, the creator of the French civil code, but came into broader use
only in the 20th century, according to Laurence Waki, the author of a recent
book on the subject.
Historians know remarkably little about the origins of
the term, Ms. Waki said, which she saw as unsurprising because it refers to
women. “It always seemed such a minor detail,” she said, “especially because the
majority of historians are men.”
Ms. Waki said she was “thrilled” to learn that
“mademoiselle” would disappear from official forms, though she added, with a
bit of chagrin, “I can’t really believe that we’re still only at this stage.”
Some women deplored the seriousness with which
feminists have approached the “mademoiselle” question, shrugging off what Ms.
de Haas called “symbolic violence” of the word.
“I find it’s a shame,” said Juliette Beniti, 61, a
former factory worker puffing on a cigarette on a sidewalk just outside Paris.
“ ‘Mademoiselle’ had its place.”
“It’s flattering,” she said. “I often call women
‘mademoiselle.’ It’s pleasing. It makes a person feel younger!”
Olivia Cattan, the founder and president of Paroles
de Femmes (Words of Women), an aid group, said the move was frustrating,
given deep gender inequities in pay and political and corporate prominence.
“We think this measure is just smoke and mirrors, to
avoid talking about more important issues,” she said. “The urgency was
elsewhere.”
After a contentious cultural debate decades ago,
English-speaking nations have largely replaced “Mrs.” and “Miss” with “Ms.” In
Germany, the term “fräulein” (“little woman”) is no longer in official use. In
Italy, honorifics are typically not used on official documents. And in the
French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, “madame” is used for all
except the very young and those who insist on “mademoiselle.”
On state forms in France, the terms “maiden name,”
“patronymic” and two expressions meaning “married name” are to be replaced by
“family name” and “used name,” Mr. Fillon said in the memo. Apparently hoping
to avert waste, he instructed that old forms should remain in circulation until
the “exhaustion of stocks.”
No official estimates were offered on Wednesday as to when those supplies might run out, but there were concerns among some that, given the French state’s penchant for bureaucratic paperwork, its current provision of forms might last some time.