Before the nineteenth century, the Church exercised a strong power over the French people and the way in which society was conducted. During this time there was also a patriarchal society which divided men and women and gave men privileges that were not offered to women. Men expected their wives and daughters to have a leisured life, where they were meant to live a relaxed life, something considered to be a status symbol. Men encouraged women to remove themselves from working and to instead focus on the household, which continued to divide men and women in both work and politics. Women were believed to need to place all their devotion into becoming better wives, mothers, and being moral beings. Through these beliefs grew the idea that the “home is a sanctuary and women are its guardian angels,” (Stuard, Bridenthal, Koonz).

The postcards sent more than one hundred years ago, in November 1904, show a young woman going against what was considered acceptable and expected from women during this time period. We do not know who sent the postcards - whether it was a man or a woman - but the short comments written on the postcards are testimony of a very close friendship. What we do know is that the only recipient of the postcards is a young “Mademoiselle” who is currently a school-teacher.  That means that the woman who is receiving the postcards is not married, and has herself chosen the complicated path of studying. Each postcard along with the image of the young woman, contains text narrating the events occurring within them. The postcards challenge the role of women during this time period, and instead of doing housework and tasks around the house considered proper for a woman, the young woman in the images is sitting at a desk showing her as if to be working. The young woman though is reading the letters she is sent from men asking to marry her, after her grandmother and herself placed an advertisement in the newspaper. But while the grandmother is intentionally trying to find her granddaughter a suitor, the young woman is trying to avoid marriage by buying herself time, and is also unintentionally fighting against the role she was given at birth along with its expectations. As she continues to review the letters sent she finds humor in them and rejects them, rejecting a widow, a poet, and a notary. And with every rejection she continues to fight against the expectation that she must marry young and fill the role of a housewife. But in the end there is a man she decides to marry showing how even while trying to fight expectations, they are a strong part of society and how women were meant to believe, and falls back into the societal norm. 

While sitting one day with her grandmother the young girl was once again pestered of her need to be married soon, because of her age. Although she was only twenty years old, she was expected to have already been married and filling the role of a housewife. While feeling she was not ready to be married and enjoying that small part of freedom she still held dear to herself, she knew it was not a reality for her because of the judgment that followed unmarried women. And while she believes she could have been happy unmarried, she did not want to suffer the terrible depiction of being gossips (McMillan). And so instead she compromised with her grandmother saying they would create an advertisement in the newspaper in which she asked for suitors to write to her, and she would decide whom to marry. And quickly letters began arriving at her home from all types of men. The first one had been a widow, he was intelligent and offered her a modest life of happiness, however upon realizing he did not like children she found an excuse to disregard his offer of marriage. She mocked the fact he did not like children by saying she being a woman had an obligation to bear children, as directed by the church who believed children to be the goal of marriage.

And as the letters she received now more frequently arrived, she managed to always find a reason to deny and toss them without much consideration. And the next letter she opened had been from a notary, who had bragged of his fortune and ability to care for her making it clear to her, he viewed women as only meant to be in need of a heart rather than both a heart and a brain. Making it obvious to her she could never accept his offer. And as the letters continued as the days passed, and her entertainment grew as they did, she rejected them. But one day a letter arrived and while thinking it had been from another suitor, she was surprised to find it was from her grandmother pleading with her to consider her nephew, Roger, as her future husband. And as the correspondences continue between one another, there is one day a letter sent from herself where she writes of the overwhelming love she has for Roger, that she feels she is suffocating. As she cries and writes about her immense love for him in the letter, she shows how she slowly reverts back to the role that was considered correct for women without noticing her slow submission to it.

In the nineteenth century, women would send one another information in order to be able to exchange information that each knew or sharing images they enjoyed for each to collect. These postcards were the way in which women were able to communicate with other people ad were able to express themselves and their emotions. Postcards varied with some having images and text or only images, but each one narrates a story in some form to the women they are sent to. And while some postcards maintained and encouraged the expectations placed on women, others challenged them and depicted women with different roles.