L'intérêt que j'ai porté à Toulouse était en partie lié à mon désir de découvrir quels facteurs sociaux étaient en corrélation avec le catharisme. Tous les groupes retenaient mon attention, et parmi eux les femmes. Le sexe féminin avait été distingué depuis longtemps par les historiens qui affirmaient que le catharisme avait été propagé par les femmes, et particulièrement celles des classes supérieures. La base de cette affirmation repose probablement sur la supposition, somme toute raisonnable, que les femmes avaient tendance à s'interroger sur les valeurs du monde dans lequel elles vivaient, et qui était régi par les hommes.

Owing to their relatively depressed position, women are often said to have been especially drawn to Catharism. Initial investigation of materials from the town of Toulouse seems not to support this view. Although Catharism gave women a somewhat greater religious role than did Catholicism, they were not placed as high as they were among the Waldensians, yet that belief had little place in the community. Furthermore women were not unusually discriminated against there, and hence had no more reason than the members of their sex elsewhere in Europe to favor divergent thought, yet Toulouse was a center of Catharism. These propositions and questions derive from an examination of the position of married women and the relation of persons of that sex to parental and marital property. Save for concubinage, the sexual relationships between men and women are not explored here.