J.P.Sommerville

Gender, the family, and political authority: patriarchalism

Suggestions for reading

Astell, Mary, There are useful collections of her writings edited by Bridget Hill (1986) and Patricia Springborg (1996.)

Bodin, Jean, Six Books of the Commonwealth
[Filmer was very fond of quoting from the French theorist]

Brennan, T., and Pateman, C., "'Mere auxiliaries to the commonwealth:' women and the origins of liberalism," in Political Studies 27(1979),183-200.

Butler, M.A., "Early liberal roots of feminism: John Locke and the attack on patriarchy," in American Political Science Quarterly 72(1978), 132-50.

Clark, L.M.G., "Women and John Locke: or who owns the apples in the garden of Eden," in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7(977), 699-724.

Daly, James, Sir Robert Filmer and English political thought, Toronto 1979.
[Fullest account, though its arguments are debatable on some major points.]

Filmer, Sir Robert, Patriarcha and Other Writings, CUP 1991
[Includes a brief introduction, setting out some key themes.]

Thomas Gataker, Marriage Duties (1620)
[Standard seventeenth century account of a wife's duties].

Nicholson, L.J., Gender and history, New York 1986.

Okin, Susan M., Women in western political thought, New Jersey 1979.
[Covers the whole of history.]

Pateman, Carole, The sexual contract, Stanford 1988.
[Important book about the presuppositions of contract theorists.]

Phillips, J.E., "The background of Spenser's attitude towards women rulers," in Huntington Library Quarterly 5(1941-2), 5-32.
[Much useful information.]

Schochet, Gordon J., Patriarchalism and Political Thought, Oxford 1975.
[There is also a reprint with a different title. Good, standard introduction.]

Shanley, M.L., 'Marriage contract and social contract', in Western Political Quarterly 32(1979), 79-91.
[Important article.]

Sommerville, Johann P., "From Suarez to Filmer: a reappraisal' "Historical Journal 25(1982), 525-40.
[Filmer and the Thomists.]

Sommerville, J.P., Royalists and Patriots. Politics and Ideology in England 1603-1640, 1999,
[Chapter 1 is particularly relevant.]

Sommerville, Johann P. "Richard Hooker, Hadrian Saravia, and the origins of the divine right of kings," in History of Political Thought 4(1983), 229-45.
[Partly on an Elizabethan figure whose ideas were strikingly like Filmer's - namely, Saravia.]

Sommerville, Margaret, Sex and Subjection. Attitudes towards women in early modern society, 1995.
[The fullest account.]