You may remember another Friday’s French post where I talked about bon père de famille used in the context of a safe investment. Well, the expression is about to disappear!

A bill on equality between men and women is being discussed in the national assembly at the moment and an article introduced by the Greenies calls for the elimination of the term en bon père de famille which appears no less than fifteen times in current legislation.

Denouncing the expression as being désuète (old-fashioned), particularly with the changing face of the nuclear family, the environmental MPs have suggested raisonnable (reasonable) as a replacement.

The expression comes from the Latin bonus pater familias which existed in Roman law.

We can only applaud the initiative as being … more than reasonable!