Early Liberal Roots of Feminism: John Locke and the Attack on Patriarchy

American Political Science Review

Volumn 72, Issue 1, 1978, Pages 135-150

  Butler, Melissa A ^a  

^a WABASH COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84971160340     PISSN: 00030554     EISSN: 15375943     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1953604     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. On patriarchalism as a world view, see Gordon J. Schochet, Patriarchalism and Political Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1975); also, W. H. Greenleaf, Order, Empiricism, and Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), Chs. 1-5; Peter Laslett, “Introduction,” Patriarcha and Other Political Works of Sir Robert Filmer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1949), p. 26; and John W. Robbins, ’The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer” (Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1973).
2. Patriarchal strains may be found in the literature of the sixteenth century including John Knox, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (Geneva, 1558). Knox argued that women were incapable of ruling a kingdom. The tract was inspired less by Knox's fear of female rule than his fear of Catholic female rule. Counterarguments were introduced by John Aylmer in An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjects against the Late Blown Blast (Strasborowe, 1559). Patriarchal political theory also influenced James I in The Trew Law of Free Monarchies (1598); he noted that “Kings are also compared to Fathers of families: for a King is trewly Parens Patriae, the politique father of his people.” Richard Field insisted in Of the Church (1606) that the political power of Adam as monarch could be derived from his power as father to the whole human race. Patriarchal theorists among Filmer's contemporaries included John Maxwell who wrote Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas or the Sacred and Royal Prerogative of Christian Kings (Oxford, 1644); and James Ussher, The Power Communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience Required of the Subject (written ca. 1644, first published 1661, 2nd ed., London, 1683); and Robert Sanderson, in his preface to Ussher's work.
3. Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost (New York: Scribner's, 1965), passim; Greenleaf, pp. 80-94; Peter Zagorin, A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (New York: Humanities Press, 1966), pp. 198-99.
4. On the use of scripture in historical argument see J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), pp. 188-89.
5. See especially Greenleaf, p. 89; also Julia OTaolain and Laura Martines, eds. Not in God's Image (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973), pp. 179-207; and Schochet, p. 16.
6. Laslett, “Introduction,” and Laslett, “Sir Robert Filmer: The Man Versus the Whig Myth,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 5 (1948), 523-46.
7. Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Political Writings of Sir Robert Filmer, ed. Peter Laslett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1949). This volume will be cited in the text as “F.W.”
8. Pocock, pp. 189-90.
9. See, for example, Edward Gee, The Divine Right and Original of the Civil Magistrate from God (London, 1658); [James Tyrrell], Patriarcha Non Mon-archa (London: Richard Janeway, 1681); and Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government (London, 1698).
10. Greenleaf, p. 89.
11. Arguments had to be structured to persuade the widest possible audience. For an exploration of this general problem, see Mark Gavre, “Hobbes and His Audience,” American Political Science Review, 68 (December 1974), 1542-56.
12. Laslett concluded that “neither Locke nor Sidney nor any of a host of others who attacked Patriarcha ever attempted to meet the force of [Filmer's] criticisms [about political obligation], and that none of them ever realized what he meant by his naturalism.” Introduction, p. 21.
13. Sidney, pp. 2-4,34-35.
14. Tyrrell, p. 83.
15. Schochet, p. 233.
16. Tyrrell, p. 74.
17. C. B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), Ch. 5; and MacPherson, “The Social Bearing of Locke's Political Theory,” Western Political Quarterly, 7 (March 1954), 1-22.
18. Tyrrell, p. 78.
19. Sidney, p. 4.
20. Peter Laslett, “Introduction,” to Two Treatises of Government, written by John Locke, ed. Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 69. References to Locke's Treatises will be made to “T.T.” with the treatise and section numbers indicated.
21. Lasten, ed., Two Treatises, p. 210 n.
22. See especially R. W. K. Hinton, “Husbands, Fathers, and Conquerors,” Political Studies, 16 (February 1968), 55-67; Geraint Parry, “Individuality, Politics and the Critique of Paternalism in John Locke,” Political Studies, 12 (June 1964), 163-77; and MacPherson, Possessive Individualism.
23. Laslett, ed., Two Treatises, p. 364, n.
24. See MacPherson, Possessive Individualism, Ch. 5. MacPherson argues that Locke assumed a class differential in the distribution of these qualities. Full membership in political society would be limited to those who. fully demonstrated them. The question under consideration here is the extent to which this class differential might also be a sex differential.
25. John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, sec. 6; also, see Locke to Mrs. Clarke, Jan. 7, 1683/4, in The Correspondence of John Locke and Edward Clarke, ed. Benjamin Rand (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927).
26. Locke to Mrs. Clarke, Jan. 7,1683/4, in Rand, p. 121.
27. Locke to Clarke, Jan. 1, 1685, in Rand, p. 121.
28. Locke to Mrs. Clarke, in Rand, p. 103.
29. Locke to Mrs. Clarke in Rand, pp. 102-03; while Locke admitted no difference between the sexes in their ability to grasp truth, he did realize that women had less practice in using that ability. He asked a friend to help him revise a Latin text of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke wanted assistance in “paring off superfluous repetitions … left in for the sake of illiterate Men and the softer Sex, not used to abstract Notions and Reasonings.” Locke to William Molyneux, Apr. 26, 1695, in A. Bettes-worth and C. Hitch, Some Familiar Letters between Mr. Locke and Several of His Friends, 3rd ed. (London, 1837), p. 88.
30. Peter Laslett, “Masham of Ores: The Rise and Fall of an English Family,” History Today, 3 (August, 1953), 535-43, at 536. See also Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (London: Longmans, Green, 1957).
31. Locke to Limborch, Mar. 13, 1690/91, reprinted in H. R. Fox Bourne, The Life of John Locke, Vol. 2 (New York: Harper, 1876), pp. 212-13.
32. [Damaris Cudworth Masham], Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Virtuous or Christian Life, in George Ballard, Memoirs of British Ladies (London: T. Evans, 1775), pp. 262-69, at p. 267.
33. Locke to Rebecca Collier, Nov. 21, 1696, reprinted in Fox Bourne, p. 453.
34. E. L. McAdam and George Milne, eds., A Johnson Reader (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964), p. 464.