Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is to examine the theorization of the patriarchal household in the work of four early modern English political theorists: Thomas More, Thomas Smith, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In particular, this work investigates the ways in which these theorists explained the existence of inegalitarian relations within the household. Each thinker is considered in turn and it is argued that all four assumed the family to be a necessarily and naturally inegalitarian form of association. ;This study goes beyond the bounds of most previous feminist scholarship in that there is an insistence that the inequality of the household described by all four theorists not only posits an inferior status for women and children but also between masters/mistresses and servants. This aspect of familial relations has hitherto been seriously neglected despite it being an explicit component in the description of the patriarchal household in early modern English political thought. The argument presented in the following pages is that inattention to this relation distorts a full understanding of the complexity of inequality within the patriarchal household of the era--both in historical actuality and theoretically . ;This dissertation is also concerned to detect historical/theoretical shifts in conceptualizations of the household which occurred from the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Here the rise to paradigmatic status of contract theory is of crucial significance. Connected to this, the influential reading of contract theory developed by the feminist scholar, Carole Patemen is critically examined