Les aspirations féministes dans les loges d'adoption

Francesca Vigni : Feminist ideals in adoptive lodges. «Loges d'adoption », which came into existence in France in 1774, were female lodges with a rather superficial ritual and frivolous activities. They were nevertheless important for their ideals, which foreshadowed later female Masonry, and for the interesting problems they posed for 18th-century Freemasonry. The very initiation of these aristocratic women called into question the traditional religious conception of women's inferiority and showed that women were autonomous, free individuals on the same footing as men, sisters sharing human qualities. The female lodges therefore challenged the social order and stood for the ideals of female emancipation.Vigni Francesca. Les aspirations féministes dans les loges d'adoption. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°19, 1987. La franc-maçonnerie. pp. 211-220