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Taming the Father: John Locke's Critique of Patriarchal Fatherhood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David Foster
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Extract

This article demonstrates the radical character of Locke's attack on patriarchalism in the Two Treatises of Government, in part by showing that that attack implies the rejection of the natural and divine order to which patriarchalism appealed to justify itself. In this way, Locke's attack on patriarchalism, which prepared the way for his individualistic liberal politics, is also shown to be an important part of his solution to the political problem of religion. Special attention is given to Locke's disagreement with the Bible concerning the family and its place in political life.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , Fall 1994 , pp. 641 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1994

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References

I would like to thank the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University, and the Department of Political Science at Boston College for their generous support and assistance while I was working on this article.

1. Tocqueville, Alexis De, Democracy in America, trans. Lawrence, George and ed. Mayer, J. P. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 585 and 586.Google Scholar

2. For general introductions to Locke and patriarchalism, see Schochet, Gordon J., The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England Patriarchalism in Political Thought (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, Inc., 1988) chap. 13Google Scholar; Tarcov, Nathan, Locke's Education for Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 9–76Google Scholar; Pangle, Thomas L., The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), chaps. 15 and 18Google Scholar; Parry, Geraint, “Individuality, Politics and the Critique of Paternalism in John Locke.” Political Studies 12 (1964): 170–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and note 5 below.

3. Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963)Google Scholar, Second Treatise, section 2. (hereafter, ST 2: FT refers to the First Treatise). See also ST 71, 77, and 169–74.

4. Tarcov, , Locke's Education for Liberty, p. 72.Google Scholar

5. The best treatments are Butler (Shanley, Mary Langdon, and Pateman, Carole, eds., Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory [Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991], chap. 4)Google Scholar; Clark (Clark, Lorenne M. G. and Lange, LyndaThe Sexism of Social and Political Theory: Women and Reproduction from Plato to Nietzsche [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979], pp. 16–40)Google Scholar; Pateman, Carole, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), chap. 4Google Scholar; Shanley (Elshtain, Jean Bethke, ed., The Family in Political Thought [Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1882], pp. 90–95).Google Scholar

6. Most feminist analyses begin from the premise that “sex-right or conjugal right must necessarily precede the right of fatherhood” (Pateman, , Sexual Contract, p. 87Google Scholar; see also, 85 and 104–105; and The Disorder of Women [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989], pp. 36–40, 74, 120).Google Scholar These two issues are of course closely related, and conjugal right does precede the right of fatherhood in some ways (e.g., in time), but it does not necessarily follow that it is more important politically, or more determinative of social conditions. One could argue, for example, that the beliefs and habits regarding hierarchy and authority, which are the crucial pillars of patriarchalism, are not rooted in the male-female relation, but in childhood education and experience. This is not to deny the importance of marriage and related issues in Locke's thought, and I would argue that Locke attended more carefully to these issues and that his perspective on them is far more antipatriarchal than Pateman will admit (see Shanley [Elshtain, , Family in Political Thought, pp. 90–95Google Scholar]; Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 216–18Google Scholar; and especially Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, pp. 172–73, 234, 239–42, 311 n.2).Google Scholar But however “sex-right,” as Pateman calls it, is ultimately related to paternal right, the purpose of this essay is to examine Locke's treatment of the latter.

7. ST 94. See also ST 87,95,112,117–24, 134, 137, 173, 192, 197, and 198.

8. See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 100, a. 7; Aristotle Ethics 1163b 15; Philo, Judaeus, Philo, vol. 7., trans. Colson, F. H. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 67Google Scholar; and Pufendorf, Samuel, On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 126-27.Google Scholar

9. Filmer, Robert, Patriarcha and Other Writings, ed. Sommerville, Johann P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. See Schochet, , Authoritarian Family, pp. 1–114Google Scholar; and Blidstein, Gerald, Honor Thy Father and Mother: Filial Responsibility in Jewish Law and Ethics (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1975), pp. 19–24.Google Scholar See also Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion. 2 vols., trans. Allen, John, 7th American edition, revised and corrected (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936), II. viii. 35–38Google Scholar; Cicero, De Officiis I. xviiGoogle Scholar; Hooker, Richard, The Works of the Learned an Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, 3 vols., ed. Keble, J., 7th ed., rev. P. W. Church and F. Paget (New York: Burt Franklin, 1970 [reprint of the 1887 ed.])Google Scholar, I. x. 4; Parry, , “Individuality,” pp. 171–72Google Scholar; Philo, pp. 447–63; Plato Statesman 258e-59d; Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, trans. Wyon, Olive (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), 1: 32,286–7, 416–18Google Scholar; and Xenophon Oeconomicus 13.5. Pufendorf, (Natural Law, p. 124)Google Scholar, calls paternal authority “the oldest as well as the most sacred form of authority.” These writers, or the views they report, differ widely among themselves, but in comparison to Locke, who argues that paternal authority bears no resemblance to political authority, they may all be classed as patriarchalists.

11. FT 56, 67,129, ST 4, 65.

12. FT 64: my emphasis; see also FT 65 and 66.

13. Education is always treated by Locke as the special duty of parents (see FT 90, 93, ST 56–70, 169). On the other hand, his statements on the purpose of government and law never mention education (FT 93, ST 87–89, 123, 173, etc.)The only exception is ST 59, where Locke suggests that the law should provide for the education of children if, for certain specific reasons, their fathers fail them in this regard. The idea that governmental authority does not extend to education is a crucial premise of Locke's argument in Some Thoughts Concerning Education as well as in the Letter Concerning Toleration.

14. FT 86–88, 92, 97.

15. On the place of property in marriage, or as Locke calls it, “conjugal society,” see FT 29, 48, ST 80 and 82, and Shanley (Elshtain, , Family in Political Thought, p. 95)Google Scholar. The question of property and fatherly authority is discussed below.

16. ST 55, 59, 61, 62, 75,170. Cf. Parry, , “Individuality,” pp. 172–73.Google Scholar and, for some of the questions implicit in Locke's account, Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, pp. 234–36.Google Scholar

17. ST 65; Locke alludes to Genesis 3:24. See also Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. 85–94Google Scholar, and Pufendorf, , Natural Law, p. 127.Google Scholar

18. De Coulanges, N. D. Fustel, The Ancient City: A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome, trans. Small, Willard (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), pp. 85–94.Google Scholar See also Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. 85–94Google Scholar and Pufendorf, , Natural Law, p. 127.Google Scholar

19. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 52.Google Scholar

20. Primogeniture is attacked throughout the Two Treatises, but the crucial passages are FT 87–103 and 111–119; cf. Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, pp.232–243.Google Scholar

21. FT 92, 88,93, ST 27.

22. Contrast Pufendorf, who in many respects is close to Locke. He argues that by natural law the issue of a legitimate marriage ought to inherit the property “unless the father has refused for sufficient reason to recognize someone as his son or has disinherited him for outrageous conduct” (Natural Law, p. 88). Cf. also Grotius, Hugo, The Laws of War and Peace. Vol. 2 in the Classics of International Law Series. Ed. Scott, James Brown (New York: Oceana Publications, Inc.,), II. viii. 3ff.Google Scholar

23. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 53Google Scholar; See also Maine, Henry James Sumner, Ancient Law (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1936), p. 134.Google Scholar

24. Fustel, , Ancient City, pp. 85–94.Google Scholar See also Bodin, Jean, The Six Books of a Commonweale (New York: Arno Press, 1979), pp. 20–31Google Scholar; Grotius, , War and Peace, II v. 2Google Scholar; and Aristotle Politics 1335b20–26.

25. ST 65; see also ST 69 and 170, and contrast Philo, p. 67.

26. Locke, John, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, ed. Yolton, John W. and Yolton, Jean S. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 109–147Google Scholar; Tarcov, , Locke's Education for Liberty, pp. 93–123Google Scholar,

27. “The dichotomy between the private and the public is central to almost two centuries of feminist writing and political struggle… [F]eminist criticism is primarily directed at the separation and opposition between the public and private spheres in liberal theory and practice” (Pateman, Carole, The Disorder of Women [Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1989], p. 118 and chap. 6Google Scholar as a whole; see also Okin, Susan Moller, Justice, Gender, and the Family [New York: Basic Books, 1989], chap. 6).Google Scholar

28. Note to ST 74, lines 14–37; see also note to ST 105.

29. Locke doubts that our records about the beginnings are reliable (observe the carefully qualified appeal to history at ST 105.1–2 and 106.1–4; consider also ST 101 and FT 141). The suggestion that the first rulers were “generally” monarchs and “commonly” fathers implies that in some polities at least the first rulers were not fathers and kings.

30. ST 74 and 108; see also ST 31, 36–38, 51, 75,107,108,110, and 111.

31. This is introduced as Filmer's idea, but the arguments for it that Locke actually proceeds to attack are “Arguments I have heard others make use of…” (FT 52). This and similar references to unnamed others (cf. FT 56), suggest that Locke's target here is not Filmer alone (see also Laslett's note to FT 56 and Zuckert, Michael P., “An Introduction to Locke's First Treatise.”Interpretation 8 (1979): 69Google Scholar).

32. According to prevailing scholarly opinion, the workmanship argument reveals the theological premise of Locke's political thought. See Tully, James, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. x, 29, 36–42, 57–8Google Scholar; Dunn, John, The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the “Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 26, 87, 96–98Google Scholar; and Laslett, , Two Treatises, p. 106Google Scholar; but contrast Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, p. 160.Google Scholar

33. Fustel, , Ancient City, p. 36.Google Scholar

34. Augustine, , City of God, trans. Bettenson, Henry, intro. Knowles, David (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), XII. 24Google Scholar; Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. 1–8Google Scholar; Hopkins, Ezekiel, Ezekiel, , An Exposition of the Ten Commandments (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), pp. 228–29Google Scholar; and Philo, pp. 63, 67–69, 447–51, 453–55. Consider also Genesis 4:1 and 1 Samuel 1:19–20, 27.

35. Calvin, , Institutes, I. xvi. 7Google Scholar; see also II. vii. 35.

36. Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Creation, 4 Vols.; Vol. Ill of Church Dogmatics, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), III. 4. 2.Google Scholar

37. A few paragraphs after quoting from Acts, Locke suggests that readers should always look up quotations in the original, and he maintains that if either the “Words” or the “Sense” of the original are changed, then the original is “always” rendered “Deformed, Lame, and useless” (FT 60). The point is made against Filmer, but it applies to any appeal to authority, including Locke's own.

38. See e.g., Calvin, , Institutes, I. iGoogle Scholar; Augustine, , City of God, XII. 26Google Scholar; and Barth, , Church Dogmatics, III. 2. 46 (pp. 362–63)Google Scholar.

39. Locke claims that God is the maker of us “all” (FT 53). According to the Bible, however, only Adam was literally made by God. Locke himself sharply distinguishes the case of Adam from every other: “Adam was created a perfect Man… But [his] Off-spring having another way of entrance into the World, different from him, by a natural Birth, that produced them ignorant…” (ST 56–57). If Adam is God's workmanship, the rest of us are not; and then what does it mean to say that God is the maker of us “all”?

40. Halevi, Judah, The Kuzari, trans. Hirschfeld, Hartwig, with an introduction by Henry Slonimsky (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), p. 146Google Scholar. See also Augustine, , City of God, XII. 24 and 26Google Scholar; Calvin, , Institutes, I. ii. 2 and I. xvi. 1ffGoogle Scholar; and Acts 17:24 and 29.

41. See Gartner, Bertill, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation, trans. King, Carolyn Hannay (Uppsala: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1955), chaps. 2 and 5Google Scholar; and Owen, H. P., “The Scope of Natural Revelation in Rom. I and Acts XVII,” New Testament Studies 5 (1959):133–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Locke writes that “one of the ordinary Appellations of God in Scripture is, ‘God our Maker,' and ‘the Lord our Maker'” (FT 53). This is certainly true, but it is also true that God is called “Father”; indeed, in the New Testament “Father” is by far the most common appellation of God. Even in Acts 17, Paul's argument is that it is as God's “offspring,” and not as His workmanship, that the continual character of our dependence on Him becomes evident to us (Acts 17:24). It is not easy to determine what Paul means by the Fatherhood of God, but the New Testament's use of this phrase suggests that Filmer is closer to the Bible than Locke allows. On the other hand, it is very difficult to see how Locke's presentation of God could accommodate this aspect of the biblical teaching.

43. Grotius, Hugo, Prolegomena to the Laws of War and Peace, trans. Kelsey, Francis W. (New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1957), pp. 40, 46Google Scholar; cf. Hooker, , Works, I. v and viii. 2, 3, 7, 9, and xi. 4.Google Scholar

44. Locke also argues more generally that absolute patriarchal monarchy causes depopulation. See FT 33, 41, ST 42, and Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, pp. 142–43.Google Scholar

45. Pangle, , Modern Republicanism, p. 179.Google Scholar

46. Contrast Tully, , Discourse on Property, pp. 133–35.Google Scholar

47. See Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. xi–xiv, 1–36Google Scholar; Philo, pp. 61–69,447–63; and note 38 below.

48. FT 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, ST 51. Consider also FT 6 and 11. Blidstein (Honor Thy Father, p. xi) points out that the Fifth Commandment is “the first of the ‘social commands' and indeed the only positive demand in the Decalogue made upon man in society.” Nietzsche confirms Locke's indications regarding the importance of the commandment when he uses it to state the distinctiveness of the Hebrew people (Nietzsche, , The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter, Kaufmann [New York: Penguin Books, 1968], p. 171)Google Scholar.

49. In contrast to the Roman doctrine of patria potestas, however, which emphasizes the power and right of the father, the Bible intends to inculcate an ethic of duty or service. The command to honor parents of course implies parental authority, but that authority is secondary to the child's duty. The primary question is not “What power does a father have over his son?... but rather, What must a son do to fulfill the command of ‘Honor'?” (Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, p. 50Google Scholar; see also pp. xi–xii and 58).

50. See Laslett's note to FT 64.

51. Calvin, , Institutes, II. viii. 35Google Scholar. See also Schochet, , Authoritarian Family, pp. 14–15, 73–74, 78–81Google Scholar; Dunn, , Political Thought of John Locke, pp. 74–75Google Scholar; and Philo, pp. 447–55.

52. For a perceptive account of the biblical limitations on parental authority, see Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. 80–109.Google Scholar

53. We have already observed Locke's advice that readers should always check quotations against the original (see note 37 above). It is pertinent now to add that this advice occurs in a discussion of the Fifth Commandment, a discussion that contains the greatest density of Scriptural citations in the Two Treatises (see FT 60–61).

54. Cassuto, Umberto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Abrahams, Israel (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1967), pp. 235-40Google Scholar; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 100, a. 5.

55. Philo, p. 63.

56. See, e.g., Barth, , Church Dogmatics, III. 4. 2Google Scholar; and Philo, 447–59.

57. In the first paragraph of the chapter on paternal power in the Second Treatise, Locke quotes no fewer than four versions of the Fifth Commandment (ST 52). These quotations, which remind of a similar but longer list in the First Treatise (FT 61), are in effect a biblical epigraph to the chapter: to understand Locke's teaching on paternal power, the teaching encapsulated in the Fifth Commandment must be kept in mind.

58. In itself, the focus on grown children is unobjectionable from the biblical point of view, since it is precisely in the relation between the mature adult and his now aging and needy parents that the crucial tests for filial piety arise (see Blidstein, , Honor Thy Father, pp. xii–xiii, 33,116–21Google Scholar).

59. Strauss, , Natural Right and History, p. 219.Google Scholar

60. ST 67; see also ST 63,170. To appreciate the irony, and therefore the antibiblical point, of Locke's reference to God's tender fatherly chastisement of the Israelites in ST 67, one must consider the meaning of Deuteronomy 8:5 in its original context. Cf. also Hebrews 12:5–11, and Psalms 103:13.

61. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 589.Google Scholar

62. Locke, , Some Thoughts Concerning Education, pp. 175–78 and 195–97.Google Scholar