ABSTRACT
One of the fundamental ways in which the feminist discussions of motherhood have tailed to allow for historical and cultural diversity in their conceptualizations of the mother is through their constructions of patriarchy. In examining literary representations of the relationships between power and the individual, a number of poststructuralist literary critics have turned to the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault states that one of the ways in which bio-power was exercised in France was through the measurement of the growth and decline of the population. Before 1914, French politicians, doctors and demographers were becoming increasingly preoccupied with the falling birth rate and the consequent dépopulation of the country. The fertility index and the campaign for maternity leave are key examples of pronatalist discursive practices, the products of a regime of bio-power within which women are predominantly defined as mothers. Before the 1920s and 1930s, celebrating motherhood did not play a large part in French political or cultural life.
