Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

The Human Comedy: Chronicles of 19th-Century France

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Bachelor Life and Married Life

BACHELOR LIFE AND MARRIED LIFE A ubiquitous plot line in 19th-century French literature involves the arrival in Paris of a wide-eyed young man from the provinces, sent to the capital to pursue a degree in law or medicine. A law degree, in particular, was regarded as a key to social mobility and the springboard to a lucrative career in politics or public service. In Balzac’s Old Goriot (1835), George Sand’s Horace (1841), and Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education (1869), we see pleasure-seeking law students who quickly abandon their studies to live it up on the bohemian Left Bank. The law student lives well beyond his means, pawning family heirlooms to pay for his expensive dandy’s wardrobe, dodging his landlord, and risking debtor’s prison or worse: marriage. The law student’s ambition was to become the lover of a wealthy married woman whose husband would not only tolerate their affair, but even help him make connections and back him financially. This approach often backfires, as we see in Gavarni’s series Husbands Avenged. Gavarni’s husbands and wives regard each other with mutual suspicion. Marriage is depicted as a constant tug-of-war, a state of perpetual tension and potential embarrassments.


  1. Le Début de l'étudiant en médecine

    Charles-Émile Jacque (French, 1813–1894) Le Début de l'étudiant en médecine (The Medical Student’s Début), 19th century L…

  2. Désillusion

    Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) Désillusion! (Disillusion!), 1844 Lithograph General Acquisitions Fund, 1935.78 Et dire qu…

  3. Le Crocodile

    Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) Le Crocodille (The Crocodile), 1838 Lithograph General Acquisitions Fund, 1944.189.1 Il sâ€â€¦

  4. L'acteur des Funambules

    Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) L'acteur des Funambules (The Actor of the Funambules), 1842 Lithograph General Acquisitions…

  5. Il ne m'ôterait seulement pas mon chapeau !

    Paul Gavarni (French, 1804–1866) Il ne m'oterait seulement pas mon chapeau ! (He won’t even take my hat off to me!), 1842 Lith…

  6. Quand on dit qu'on a une femme

    Paul Gavarni (French, 1804–1866) Quand on dit qu'on a une femme...(When you say you have a woman...), 1842 Lithograph Gift of Eu…

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