Patriarchy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Patriarchy is the government of fathers. In ancient Greece and Rome, the patriarch—or male head of household—was considered to have the “natural” author ity to make family decisions. His family included all dependents: wives, children, relatives, servants, and slaves. Although philosophers and officials debated the unlimited or limited nature of his authority, they agreed that the family patriarch set the rules for family life, enforced them, and punished family members for any infractions. The patriarch’s main obligation was to enhance the welfare of the family and protect it from internal strife and external threats by whatever means he found necessary. He enjoyed extensive discretion. The main restraint on his governing powers was the common expectation that he would use his authority for the good of his household rather than as a tool of malice or vengeance.

Historical Legitimation And Liberal Critique

The history of Western political theory offered three main ways by which the patriarchal authority of family fathers was used to legitimize the political authority of ruling monarchs. Anthropological patriarchy suggested that primitive family associations evolved into larger societies and, simultaneously, the male heads of the households evolved into the heads of kingdoms. Family fathers became reigning political patriarchs. Moral patriarchy was based on the premise that political authority belonged to the original generation of fathers, such as the biblical Adam, and they bequeathed to their successors the right to rule. Authority passed from fathers to sons. This was the argument of Sir Robert Filmer who, in seventeenth century England, published the most famous defense of political patriarchy, Patriarcha: A Defence of the Natural Power of Kings against the Unnatural Liberty of the People. Finally, ideological patriarchy involved using the language, metaphors, and images of fatherhood to claim political authority. Teachers, masters, employers, and magistrates assumed the role of fathers, portrayed themselves as fathers, claimed the authority of fathers, and sought to parlay individuals’ loyalty towards their households’ fathers into citizens’ obedience to their political fathers.

Seventeenth-century social contract theory, especially John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, disputed the legitimacy of patriarchal political authority. Locke’s social contract theory argued that the natural authority of family fathers did not transfer to political rulers. Adult sons had natural rights rather than any obligation to obey their fathers. To protect their natural rights, men consented to submit to a limited government that would maintain order and settle disputes. For Locke, the convention of consent legitimized political authority and the defense of individuals’ natural rights was the main guideline and limit for the exercise of political authority. By the late eighteenth century, particularly in America, social contract theory provided the intellectual foundation for an emerging liberalism that emphasized individual rights, a free market economy, and limited constitutional government. This classical liberalism rapidly gained influence at the expense of patriarchal reasoning and institutions.

Persistence Despite Liberal Reform

Nonetheless, important elements of patriarchy persisted even where liberalism thrived. First, the liberal idea that all men were political equals was counterweighed by the patriarchal belief that particularly “masculine” men deserved to govern other men and were usually successful in doing so. The Australian social scientist R. W. Connell identifies the emergence of a modern male hierarchy with at least three main elements: “hegemonic masculinity, conservative masculinities (complicit in the collective project but not its shock troops), and subordinated masculinities” (110). Even when congresses replaced kings, some men continued to proclaim their dominance and persuaded other men to recognize and respect it.

The second patriarchal element that persisted stemmed from the social contract that left the subordination of women to men intact. Carole Pateman suggests that a “sexual contract” preceded the social contract. The sexual contract was an agreement among men to maintain male authority over all women; the men deemed these women deficient in the qualities necessary to grant consent and exercise independent citizenship. Only after men agreed that women were to be sequestered and subordinated in patriarchal households did the theorists make their case for a social contract—this contract contested the patriarchal authority of kings and sought to replace it with a fraternal society in which equal rights, free market transactions, and limited government constituted the basis for male interactions.

A third element of patriarchy was due to the Anglo-American jurisprudence that contained common-law guarantees for husbands’ authority over their families and, equally important, for governments’ patriarchal authority to intervene in society to ensure “the due regulation and domestic order of the kingdom.” English legal scholar Sir William Blackstone explained, “The individuals of the state, like members of a well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behavior to the rules of propriety, good neighborhood, and good manners; and to be decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations” (162). When citizens did not conform to the norms of good behavior, officials had a fatherly duty to intervene.

Political leaders invoked this duty when they sought to regulate virtually all aspects of people’s lives.

Conclusions

An understanding of patriarchy—whether as the government of kings over subjects, or as the rule of hegemonic men over subordinated men; or as the dominance of men over all women; or as the intervention by public officials in the lives of citizens—has a significant impact on one’s historical analysis. For example, was the American Revolution (1776–1783) an “antipatriarchal” revolution? Most historians would answer in the affirmative. They focus on the weakening of fathers’ powers in their families and on the defeat of the British monarchy. They highlight the rise of liberal norms and institutions that emphasize liberty, equality, and opportunity. Where they find traces of prerevolutionary patriarchy, they treat these phenomena as vestiges of the past or as anomalies doomed for extinction. Other historians are more reticent to declare the defeat of patriarchy. Those who are interested in gender often see little change in patterns of male domination or in relevant laws (e.g., “coverture”) after the Revolution.

Scholars who focus on state and local governments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries often note that U.S. civic leaders and political officials’ concerns about individual rights and government limits were quieted when confronting issues crucial to community welfare. The rise of liberalism notwithstanding, patriarchy as a concept and as a practice persisted in the centuries following the American Revolution. Globally, it continues in all of its varied aspects in many nations. Its remarkable durability in the face of widespread modern opposition contradicts the Enlightenment belief that the world is progressing toward greater liberty, equality, and democracy.

Bibliography:

Blackstone,William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. 4 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Bloch, Ruth H. Gender and Morality in Anglo-American Culture, 1650–1800. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Connell, R.W. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Dubber, Markus Dirk. The Police Power: Patriarchy and the Foundations of American Government. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Godbeer, Richard. Sexual Revolution in Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Kann, Mark E. A Republic of Men:The American Founders, Gendered Language, and Patriarchal Politics. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Schochet, Gordon J. The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England: Patriarchalism in Political Thought. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1988.
Stansell, Christine. City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1987.

This example Patriarchy Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.