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The Fraternal Social Contract

This document analyzes the social contract theory and its implications for gender relations. It argues that while social contract theorists rejected paternal rule, they still preserved patriarchal notions by framing the social contract as a "fraternal pact" between men, thereby excluding women. This established a public/private divide where women were relegated to the private sphere subject to male authority. The social contract thus created a new form of patriarchy despite overthrowing the old paternal system, as it was founded on ideas of masculine fraternity that left women in a subordinate position outside of civil society.

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OUMAIMA EL JAOUHARI
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82 views4 pages

The Fraternal Social Contract

This document analyzes the social contract theory and its implications for gender relations. It argues that while social contract theorists rejected paternal rule, they still preserved patriarchal notions by framing the social contract as a "fraternal pact" between men, thereby excluding women. This established a public/private divide where women were relegated to the private sphere subject to male authority. The social contract thus created a new form of patriarchy despite overthrowing the old paternal system, as it was founded on ideas of masculine fraternity that left women in a subordinate position outside of civil society.

Uploaded by

OUMAIMA EL JAOUHARI
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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- feminism politicized what was previously outside the political realm.

- It moved the debate beyond the traditional public man and private woman.
- The division prevents women's issues from being addressed in the political realm.
- Civil society is created through social contract.
- Question: separation between public and private spheres.

The fraternal social contract


- The social contract generates political rights.

- Critic:
Political theorists present the creation of the civil society as a universal real that includes
everyone.

- Social contract is a fraternal pact that makes civil society as a patriarchal or


masculine order.
- There is a patriarchal political right that men exercise over women.

- Critic:
They discuss the individual, public and civil society without considering how they were
constituted as patriarchal categories in opposition to womanly nature and private
sphere.
- Evidence:

1- Public and private division:


--- Feminism: there is a public or civil sphere and a private or familial sphere. Anything
that lies beyond the private or domestic sphere is public or civil sphere. ²
--- Contrast: Public state and the market, classes and corporations of the private civil
society. This is drawn from Hegel's threefold division between: family, civil society and
state.
The separation between family and social life goes unnoticed. This is because: the original
creation of civil society through the social contract is patriarchal and is a separation
between the sexes.
Civil life is private in opposition to the public state.
- Fraternal bonds:
How can women be integrated in a patriarchal civil world.

2- Meaning of patriarchy:

- According to Pateman, it is the only word that can capture the subjection and
oppression that women suffer from.

- There are two opinions in feminist theory:


----- Patriarchy is nothing but paternal rule.
----- Patriarchy is a timeless, human universal.
- Our transition from the traditional to modern world involved a change from:
----- Traditional or paternal patriarchy.
----- Modern or fraternal form of patriarchy: patriarchal civil society.

3- Conflict between patriarchalists and social theorists:

- There is a conflict between patriarchalists and social contract theorists: political


right of fathers and natural liberty of sons.

---- Patriarchalism:
◼ Kings and fathers rule in the same way.
◼ Sons were naturally born subject to their father.
◼ Political authority, obedience and an unequal hierarchy are natural.
---- Social contract theorists:
◼ Paternal and political rule are distinct.
◼ Family and polity are different forms of association.
◼ Sons are born free and equal.
◼ Political authority and obligation are conventional.

--------- This shift in the way of thinking led from the world of father kings to
capitalist society, liberal representative government and the modern family.
The sons gain liberty, make the contract and create liberal civil society.

This is a patriarchal reading of the texts.


- Critic:
---- patriarchalism has two dimensions: paternal and masculine. The contract theorists
defeated paternal right, but preserved conjugal, masculine patriarchal right as being natural:
men rule over women.
--- Origin of political right to:
Filmer:
◼ The king's will is law.
◼ The right to rule emerged from the original divine grant of kingly right to Adam.
◼ Title comes from fatherhood.
◼ Fathers and kings ruled by virtue of their fatherhood and all fathers are monarchs in
their families.

- Women criticized universalism and individualism that claimed women were born
into subjection that is natural and politically irrelevant: why should women be
subordinate to men upon marriage.
- Social theorists preserved the masculine right in their theories and forgot about the
origin of patriarchal power.
- Feminist writings were suppressed and ignored.

- Critic:
- The father's political power was defeated by social contract theorists. Yet the term
individuals did not become inclusive of women. They did not have the capacity
to seal the pact.
- The contract is made by brothers or a fraternity or brotherhood.
- The term fraternity is usually addressed as inclusive of all: the acceptance of the
term as a way of referring to the bond between the community illustrates how
deeply rooted patriarchy in the system.
- The social contract is a fraternal pact.
History or theory:
- Freud: after the death of the father and the patriarchal rule, the brothers establish
their rule that is based on justice.
- The brother is: free, equal and a collective body of men.
- If they enter the contract, they should cast familial ties aside and act as equals.
- Modern patriarchy is set in opposition to the familiar sphere.

- Critic:
- Without a father, there are no sons or brothers. Brotherhood here means more than
kinship.
- Kinship is left behind. The bond that ties them is a bond as men.
- Critic:
- In Freud's story, the brothers kill the father to gain access to women.
- The parricide eliminates the father's political right and exclusive sexual right.
- There is a separation of women from men by subjecting women to men.
Separation of women's bodies from men's reason.
- The fraternal social contract creates a new patriarchal order that is divided
into two:
◼ Civil society: freedom, equality, the real of men.
◼ Private world: love, passion, subjection. Men also rule here.
- Women are claimed to be unable to transcend their bodily features. Their
body deprives them of the reason and moral character that are necessary to uphold
the contract.

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