Carole Pateman Social Contract Theory

Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract digs deep into contract theory and the issues that arise from relationships created by contract. Pateman hones her focus on the slavery, marriage, employment, prostitution contracts. The main issue at stake is that “the original contract is a social-sexual pact.” (1) The simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of women from civil society lays in the suppression of the sexual contract. Political right becomes “patriarchal or [male] sex-right.” (1) Through analysing the classic theorists (Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Filmer and Freud) and critiquing feminist and socialist uses of contract theory, Pateman begins to uncover the sexual contract and bring to light the effect it has on modern contract and society. While …show more content…
She accomplishes this by separating patriarchy into three forms: first, traditional patriarchy, or that “the genesis of the (patriarchal) family is frequently seen as synonymous with the origin of social life.” (23) This view is replaced by Filmer’s ‘classic’ patriarchy, that “sons were born into subjection to their fathers, and therefore into political subjects.” (24) Locke, in his dismissal of paternal right is often viewed as anti-patriarchal, but as Pateman points out, Locke’s “separation of [the] family from political life had everything to do with Locke’s view of women.” (21) Locke’s views upheld patriarchy, not in a paternal sense, but the modern, fraternal version of patriarchy. As Patemen states, “in the story of the social contract the father is metaphorically killed by his sons, who transform (the paternal dimension of) the father’s patriarchal right into civil government.” (32) . Viewed in this sense, the move from status to contract seems very anti-patriarchal. However, the move from status to contract is a “transformation of patriarchy, not its negation.” (85) What is ignored in the views of traditional and classic patriarchy is that “sex-right or conjugal right must necessarily precede the right of fatherhood.” (87) Before he has the right over his sons as a father, a man has the right over his wife as a man. The brothers “make a sexual contract [which] confirms masculine …show more content…
Pateman also aims to explore the gaps left in feminist explorations of the marriage contract. The distinction that the marriage contract is unlike other contracts is important. The issues within the marriage contract cannot be appreciated if we view marriage contract as contract. (156) Instead, it must be viewed as a means to maintain sex-right. As Kant states, for a marriage to be valid, “the sex act [is required]. Not until a husband has exercised his conjugal right is the marriage contract complete.” (164) In most contracts, the exchange of the use of property in the person takes place, however, in the marriage contract “the husband [is] who has use of a person, not the wife.” (172) This alienates the marriage contract from other forms of contract; the marriage contract cannot truly be a contract if women are involved. Women are not ‘individuals’ and therefore do not have the right to the property in their person, therefore, an exchange cannot take place. Pateman brings attention to Majorie Shultz views that marriage should move from status to contract. To Pateman this view disregards that contract, as well as status upholds patriarchal views of sex, just in different ways. (167) Status maintains the paternal or classic patriarchal view of sex; contract maintains the fraternal or modern patriarchal view of sex. Either way, women are at a disadvantage and assumed to