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Unit 7: John Locke
his wife was a non-political form of power. He conferred on the husband the power of decision Notes
making within the family, since he was by nature physically abler and stronger. Through the
marriage contract a wife accepted and consented to her domination:
... but a Punishment laid upon Eve: and if we will take them as they were directed in
particular to her, as their representative to all other Women, they will at most concern
the Female Sex only, and import no more but that Subjection they should ordinarily be
in to their Husbands: But there is here no more Law to oblige a Woman to such a
Subjection, if the Circumstances either of her Condition or Contract with her Husband
should exempt her from it, then there is, that she should bring forth her Children in
Sorrow and Pain, if there could be found a Remedy for it ... for the whole Verse runs
thus, unto the Woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; In
sorrow thou shalt bring forth Children, and thy desire shall be to thy Husband, and he shall
rule over thee. ’Twould, I think, have been a hard matter for any Body, but our A. to
have found a Grant of Monarchical Government to Adam in these Words ... God, in this
Text, gives not, that I see, any Authority to Adam over Eve, or to Men over their Wives,
but only foretels what should the Woman’s Lot, how by this Providence he would
order it so, that she should be subject her husband, as we see that generally the Laws
of Mankind and customs of Nations have ordered it so; and there is, I grant,
a Foundation in Nature for it.
Thus, for Locke,
although a grant of dominion to the patriarch is denied as having any basis in nature,
woman’s subordination to man is explained as a result of the curse laid upon Eve, the
laws and traditions of mankind, and the foundation of nature. Locke in this instance
is trying to have his cake and eat it. He ridicules naturalistic arguments for political
society which ground patriarchalism in history, scripture, and tradition, and slips in
via the Garden of Eden the notion that women’s subordination within the conjugal not
political, society of marriage may be understood and defended on the basis of nature.
However, in accordance with his stress on self-preservation and natural moral equality, Locke
placed limits on the husband’s authority, confining it to property and matters of common interest
and explicitly denied a right over his wife’s life or fortune. As in politics, even family life was
based on the premise that individuals were free and equal under the laws of nature. The members
of a family had to preserve themselves and fulfil their obligations.
Pateman (1988) pointed out that the social contract theory as developed by Hobbes and Locke did
not consider women as persons or citizens with rights in the public sphere, because a tacit sexual
contract preceded the social contract by which the consent of the people was elicited to decide on
the terms and conditions of their governments. “The sexual contract is the vehicle through which
men transform their natural right over women into the security of civil patriarchal right’ (1988: 6).
Pateman pointed out that the idea of a free and equal individual which the liberal democratic
theory espoused hardly existed, as it was hindered by the inequalities of class, sex and race.
In spite of giving women a political role, Locke continued to see women as mothers and as wives.
He was therefore regarded as an early feminist for his considerate views and attitude towards
women.
Locke replaced Filmer’s absolutist patriarchal model with a liberal redefinition of patriarchal rule.
For Filmer, parental authority was divine, natural and unlimited, while Locke separated family
life from political authority. While a husband-wife relationship was contractual and therefore
voluntary, a parent-child relationship was natural but limited and conditional. The family was
needed for procreation of the human race and education of the young.
LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 121