Patriarchy

"Patriarchy, particularly as embedded in the Old and New Testaments, and Roman legal precepts, has been a powerful organising concept with which social order has been understood, maintained, enforced, contested, adjudicated and dreamt about for over two millennia of western history. This brief book surveys three influential episodes in this history: seventeenth-century debates about absolutism and democracy, nineteenth-century reconstructions of human prehistory, and the broad mobilisations linked to twentieth-century women's movements. It then looks at the way feminist scholars have reconsidered and revised some earlier explanations built around patriarchy. The book concludes with an overview of current uses of the concept of patriarchy - from fundamentalist Christian activism, over foreign policy analyses of oppressive regimes, to scholarly debates about forms of effective governance. By treating patriarchy as a powerful tool to think with, rather than a factual description of social relations, the text makes a useful contribution to current social and political thought."--Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 Acknowledgements 9 1. Thinking with patriarchy 10 Notes 14 References 14 2. Remembering Rome and reading the Bible 15 Remembering Rome 16 Classical education 22 Reading the Bible and making church law 24 Notes 29 References 29 3. Absolutism, democracy and God 32 Absolutism and monarchs’ God-given patriarchal power 32 Patriarchalism and democracy 34 Notes 37 References 37 4. Patriarchy, matriarchy and the origins of humanity 39 Legal anthropology and revolutions in time 39 Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (1822–1888) 41 Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887) 44 John Ferguson McLennan (1827–1881) 46 Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) 49 Karl Marx (1818–1883) 51 Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) 53 August Bebel (1840–1913) 56 Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) 58 Notes 60 References 60 5. Patriarchy and the making of sisterhood 62 Freud, psychoanalysis and habits of mind 69 Engels, Marxism and ‘materialist feminism’ 74 When did it start? 77 Patriarchy is at home at home ... 81 Towards a new synthesis 84 So what about patriarchy? 86 Notes 89 References 89 6. Patriarchy in feminist scholarship and activism from the 1980s to the end of the millennium 93 Critiques of imperial feminism 96 Belated grand overviews 102 Words, patriarchy and the speaking subject 104 Patriarchy and the subjugation of nature 107 A rupture in patriarchal systems of thought 109 Historically specific, messy patriarchies 111 Interestingly different gender regimes 113 War over the family 117 Notes 121 References 121 7. Contesting patriarchy today 128 Feminism and anti-feminism in the twenty-first century 130 Debating fatherhood and reclaiming men’s rights 135 Patriarchy and bringing up babies 136 Reforming soft males: the mythopoetic movement 137 Reclaiming fathers’ patriarchal rights 138 Fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic groups 141 Do their women really need saving? 144 Patrimonialism and paternalism in scholarly debates about effective governance 150 Notes 154 References 155 Index 161 Patriarchy has been a powerful organising concept with which social order has been understood, enforced and contested for more than 2000 years. This book shows how debates about absolutism and democracy, human prehistory, and the social justice demands of twentieth-century women's movements, were all thought through with notions of patriarchy.