Hobbes’ egalitarian state-of-nature theory nonetheless kept women subordinate to men
Evidence
Hobbes’ assumption of equality in the state of nature in theory challenged the patriarchal family in as much as it was the mother and not the father who had dominion over the child in the state of nature, for “It cannot be known who is the father, unless it be declared by the mother.” Yet, in his discussion of the family in Leviathan, the mother has vanished, the family being constituted of “a man and his children; or … a man and his servants; or … a man, and his children, and servants together.” The father was given dominion over the household, since “for the most part commonwealths have been erected by fathers, not the mothers of families.” In De Cive (1642, published 1647), a family is defined as “a father with his sons and servants, grown into a civil person by virtue of his paternal jurisdiction.” Thus, while the state of nature would logically imply full equality for women, in democratic consent theories arising from Hobbes and Locke, women remained under the dominion and authority of men. Seventeenth-century “democratic” theories, based on atomistic equality for every individual, in reality meant equality for middleand upper-class property-holding males. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 825
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: A compact demonstration that the very atomistic-equality premises that undermined monarchy and patriarchy in principle were quietly dropped where women were concerned — fundamental to ecofeminist and intersectional readings of liberal contract theory.
- ADDENDUM: Threads into complaints/immodesty and sacrifice themes by showing how putatively universal egalitarian theory was silently gendered male.
- XREF: connects to: The mechanistic worldview sanctioned domination of both nature and women — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 64; Male freedom is incompatible with advocating the subjugation of women
Broader Connections
- Male freedom is incompatible with advocating the subjugation of women
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