Breaking news! Our native French consultant and honorary salon member Guillaume says that it can mean either, but after discussing the context of who's saying what to whom, he's leaning toward singular "the woman" as the most likely intended meaning.
He says it comes across as insulting and misogynistic either way, which, you know, Fritz is a misogynist, news at 11. ;) But given that Fritz is gay and the one forcing the marriage and he's talking specifically about the marriage when he says thus, we agree he's probably not talking about Heinrich's sexuality but about how this marriage is a really great idea, like all of Fritz's ideas.
Plus I gave Guillaume the whole passage, and he says that there would have been much more natural ways to say "women" in that sentence, even if you wanted to be misogynistic about it.
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Re: Voltaire and Émilie
Date: 2020-08-01 05:26 am (UTC)He says it comes across as insulting and misogynistic either way, which, you know, Fritz is a misogynist, news at 11. ;) But given that Fritz is gay and the one forcing the marriage and he's talking specifically about the marriage when he says thus, we agree he's probably not talking about Heinrich's sexuality but about how this marriage is a really great idea, like all of Fritz's ideas.
Plus I gave Guillaume the whole passage, and he says that there would have been much more natural ways to say "women" in that sentence, even if you wanted to be misogynistic about it.
So that's the verdict from our Frenchman.