The Sexual ContractCarole Pateman is one of the foremost political theorists writing in English today. In this outstanding new work, she presents a major reinterpretation of modern political theory. She shows how standard discussions of social contract theory tell only half the story. The sexual contract which establishes modern patriarchy and the political right of men over women is never mentioned. In a wide-ranging and scholarly discussion, Pateman examines the significance of the political fictions of the original contract and the slave contract. She also offers a sweeping challenge to conventional understandings - of both left and right - of actual contracts in everyday life: the marriage contract, the employment contract, the prostitution contract and the new surrogacy contract. By bringing a feminist perspective to bear on the contradictions and paradoxes surrounding women and contract and the relation between the sexes, she is able to shed new light on the fundamental problems of freedom and subordination. The Sexual Contract will become a classic text in the politics of gender and will be of major interest to students of social and political theory and philosophy, women's studies, sociology and jurisprudence. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Patriarchal Confusions | 19 |
3 Contract the Individual and Slavery | 39 |
4 Genesis Fathers and the Political Liberty of Sons | 77 |
5 Wives Slaves and Wage Slaves | 116 |
6 Feminism and the Marriage Contract | 154 |
Other editions - View all
The Sexual Contract: 30th Anniversary Edition, with a New Preface by the Author Carole Pateman No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
argues argument become capacities capitalism century civil slave civil society claim classic contract theorists conjectural history conjugal right contemporary contract doctrine contractarian coverture created criticism depends discussions domestic economic employer employment contract enter example exchange exogamy father fatherhood female Feminism feminists Filmer fraternity Freud genesis Hegel Hobbes housewife human Ibid individual as owner J. S. Mill John Stuart Mill Kant Kant’s labour power law of male Locke Locke’s male sex-right man’s marriage contract married masculine means men’s merely Mill modern patriarchy mother mother-right mutual original contract original pact parties paternal right patriarchal right person political fiction political right private sphere problem prostitution contract Pufendorf question Rawls relationship Rousseau servant sexual contract sexual difference slave contract slavery social contract theorists socialist status story Subjection of Women subordination surrogacy contract surrogate theory unfree labour wage labour wife’s wives woman women’s bodies worker