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Adoptive Lodges before the French Revolution |
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As they were striving for equality, women thought Freemason might be a means of emancipation, and a few men supported their enterprise. They gained admission to certain meetings, though they were not acknowledged as full-fledged Masons. Women's Masonry was largely restricted to a so-called "adoptive" Masonry: female Lodges were founded under the authority of their male counterparts, a kind of proxy Masonry, so to speak. The adoptive Lodges developed steadily throughout the eighteenth century. |
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1774 was a historic milestone in France, when the Grand Orient became an independent Masonic body by federating existing Lodges, including the adoptive ones, which were thus officially granted recognition and a status.
These adoptive Lodges, which bore the same name as the masculine ones on which they depended, spread rapidly, so that they may have been close to a hundred over the country. |
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They were characterized by considerable diversity, and some of them, especially in Paris, achieved great prestige: |
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The adoptive Lodge Les Neuf Soeurs was a particularly feminist group, very actively supported by the men's Lodge, which Voltaire was to join in 1778. |
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Another one, La Candeur, created in 1775, was quite active and its fame was soon to outshine that of the men's Lodge it derived from. It rapidly conquered its autonomy. |
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The activities of these adoptive Lodges varied greatly from one to the other but remained essentially focused on philanthropic pursuits. However, over the years, their members began to be more and more interested in social issues.
With the French Revolution, all these Lodges disappeared, as did the men's Lodges they had sprung from. |
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