Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T21:24:45.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

II. Patriarchalism, Politics and Mass Attitudes in Stuart England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Gordon J. Schochet
Gordon J. Schochet
Affiliation:
Livingston College, Rutgers University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is increasingly becoming a commonplace to assert that non-political activities engaged in during childhood play determinative roles in shaping individuals' attitudes toward and perceptions of the political order. A large part of this early ‘political socialization’, as it is now called, takes place within the family, which, in the words of one commentator, ‘incubates the political man’, whether or not there is a conscious attempt to inculcate political beliefs. As T. D. Weldon remarked, ‘Basic political creeds may not be actually imbibed … with mother's milk: but children are none the less indoctrinated in practically every other way.’ This socialization plus later experiences (including reading, conversations, and direct encounters with government) will help to implant notions of political legitimacy; that is, the grounds on which a political authority is held to be entitled to rule. Legitimacy and the consequent public acceptance of government are among the very foundations upon which politics rests. In the words of David Easton,

If a government…is to be capable of performing its tasks, the member of the [particular political] system must be prepared to support the particular norms and structures that organize the way in which all political activities are performed. That is, they must be willing to support the 'constitutional order' or regime. Hence, we are identifying the fundamental rules of the game, as they are often described, regulating participation in political life and the particular way of organizing political power in a given society.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1969 , pp. 413 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Erikson, Erik H., Childhood and Society, 2nd ed. (New York, 1963), pp. 254, 270, 277, 404, 277–424 passim.Google Scholar

2 Lane, Robert E., Political Life: Why and How People Get Involved in Politics, paperback ed. (New York, 1965), p. 204.Google Scholar The family, of course, is not the only source of political socialization. The standard work on the subject is Hyman, Herbert, Political Socialization: A Study in the Psychology of Political Behavior (Glencoe, Ill., 1959).Google Scholar A more recent text is Dawson, Richard E. and Prewitt, Kenneth, Political Socialization (Boston, 1969).Google Scholar See also Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, paperback ed. (Boston, 1965), pp. 266–74 and refs.Google Scholar

3 This is by no means a twentieth-century notion. To give only two examples, John Locke and David Hume both recognized the role of the family in preparing men for politics. See Lockel, , Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter (Cambridge, 1960), II, 105;Google ScholarHume, ,‘Of the Origin of Government’, in Political Essays, ed. Hendel, Charles W. (New York, 1953) p. 39;Google Scholar and Hume, , A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L.A (Oxford, 1888), III, ii, 2, p. 487.Google Scholar

4 Weldon, T.D., States and Morals: A Study in Political Conflicts (London, 1946), pp. 213–14.Google Scholar

5 Easton, David, ‘Political Anthropology’, Biennial Review of Anthropology, 1959, ed. Siegel, Bernard J. (Stanford, 1959), p. 228.Google Scholar I owe this reference to Dr James Rosenau of Rutgers University.

6 Stone, Lawrence, ‘Social Mobility in England, 1500–1700’, Past and Present, XXXIII (04, 1966), 20.Google Scholar

7 See Laslett, Peter, ‘The History of Population and Social Structure’, International Social Science Journal, XVII (1965), 582–93,Google Scholar and Wrigley, E.A. (ed.), An Introduction to English Historical Demography from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (London, 1966)Google Scholar

8 See Aries, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Baldick, Robert (New York, 1962), pp. 366,Google Scholar 369; George, Charles H. and George, Katherine, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation (Princeton, 1961), pp. 260,Google Scholar 276–89; Hill, Christopher, The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (Edinburgh, 1961), pp. 251–2;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLaslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost (London, 1965);Google ScholarLaslett, Peter and Harrison, John,‘Clayworth and Cogenhoe’, Historical Essays, 1600–1750, Presented to David Ogg, ed. Bell, H.E. and Ollard, R.L. (London, 1963), pp. 157–84;Google ScholarSchlatter, Richard, Social Ideas of Religious Leaders, 1660–1680 (London, 1940), pp. 27–31,Google Scholar 60; Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 590,Google Scholar 591 (but cf. p. 669); Thirsk, Joan, ‘The Family’ (review article), Past and Present, XXVII (04 1964), 116–22;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Thomas, Keith, ‘Women and the Civil War Sects’, Past and Present, XIII (04 1958), 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Dod, John and Cleaver, Robert, A Godly Form of Household Government, for the Ordering of Private Families (1598, reprinted London, 1630),Google Scholar sigs. Z 5 and Aa 5. Original text of first passage in Italics. For an analysis of this literary genre see Powell, Chilton L., English Domestic Relations, 1487–1653 (New York, 1917), pp. 101–46,Google Scholar 146, 234–42.

10 Cobbet, Thomas, A Fruitfull and Usefull Discourse Touching the Honour Due from Children to Parents (London, 1656),Google Scholar Epistle, sig. A 2v. Original text in Italics.

11 [Fenner], Dudley, The Artes of Logike and Rhetoric, Plainlie Set Foorth (n.p., [1584]),Google Scholar sig. C 2v. For additional examples of this same point, see the passages from catechism books quoted below and throughout.

12 Dod and Cleaver, Godly Form, sig. I 2.

13 [Dod, John and Cleaver, Robert], A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandments (1604), 18th ed. (London, 1632), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

14 [Fenner], Artes of Logike, sigs. C3–C3v.

15 Batty, Bartholomaeous, The Christian Mans Closet: Wherein is Contained a Large Discourse of the Godly Training up of Children (London, 1581),Google Scholar fo. 65.

16 Aryault, Peter, A Discourse for Parents Honour, and Authorities, trans. Budden, John (London, 1614), pp. 28–9.Google Scholar

17 Of course, the notion of benefits is a reciprocal one, for it calls attention to the corresponding duties and obligations on both sides; in this respect it is close to the contractual theory. Ultimately, I should say that there were two distinguishable doctrines that were combined here in a contradictory if not sloppy manner. But the inherent tension in this conflation of patriarchalism and the contract was virtually unnoticed. This problem is taken up below, page 435 ff., where the interpretation sketched out here is further developed.

18 Fleetwood, William, The Relative Duties of Parents, Husbands, Masters (London, 1705), pp. 385–6.Google Scholar

19 Chilvers Cotton is far from representative in precisely this respect, for one of these three households consisted of thirty-seven people, of whom twenty-eight were servants. See Laslett, World We Have Lost, p. 7.

20 The preceding remarks are based upon information placed at my disposal by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. Needless to say, the interpretation and use of these materials is my own and does not necessarily reflect the conclusions of the Cambridge Group. Peter Laslett is completing a formal study of the social structure of pre-industrial England based upon these same materials, and I have profited from discussions with him. For an earlier statement of some of his findings, see his World We Have Lost, passim.

21 Batty, Christian Mans Closet, fols. I–Iv.

22 Aryault, Discourse, sig. A2.

23 See Brerewood, Edward, A Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1631), esp. pp. 6–7,Google Scholar 24, 48, 49; and his A Second Treatise of the Sabbath: or An Explication of the Fourth Commandment (Oxford, 1632), p. 41.Google Scholar This specific case is discussed in Hill, Christopher, Intellectual Origins of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1965), pp. 51–2.Google Scholar

24 Ellwood, Thomas, The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself, ed. Morley, Henry (London, 1885), pp. 34–5,Google Scholar 53. See also, pp. 43, 51, 54–6. I owe this reference to Mr Keith Thomas of St John's College, Oxford.

25 As John Stuart Mill observed in his Political Economy: ‘Of the working man, at least in the more advanced countries of Europe, it may be pronounced certain that the patriarchal or paternal system of government is one to which they will not again be subject. That question was decided when they were taught to read, and allowed access to newspapers and political tracts; when dissenting preachers were suffered to go among them, and appeal to their faculties and feelings in opposition to the creeds professed and countenanced by their superiors; when they were brought together in numbers, to work socially under the same roof; when railways enabled them to shift from place to place, and change their patrons and employers as easily as their coats, when they were encouraged to seek a share in the government, by means of the electoral franchise.’ (Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols. (Boston, 1848), II, 322–3;Google Scholar quoted in Bendix, Reinhard, ‘The Lower Classes and the Democratic Revolution’, Industrial Relations, I (1961–1962), 106.Google Scholar)

26 I am indebted to Roger Schofield of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure for all of the information in this paragraph. Dr Schofield is directing the literacy study for the Cambridge Group. A brief and preliminary description of his work is contained in his ‘Statement on a Survey of Literacy in Historical Times’, Cambridge Group: mimeographed, January 1967.

27 Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, v (1962–1963), 326.Google Scholar

28 An Ordinance…[for] the Enabling of Congregations for the Choyce of Elders (London, 1645), p. 6.Google Scholar Original text in black letter. Emphasis added.

29 The Case of the Army Soberly Discussed (London, 1647), p. 6.Google Scholar I owe this reference to Dr Richard Schlatter, Provost of Rutgers University. In view of these and the following references, it is perhaps possible to qualify Professor Macpherson's compelling interpretation of the Levellers' position on the franchise. In the context of contemporary attitudes, the crucial factor that seems to have set servants and beggars off from the rest of society and deprived them of political significance was not so much the alienation of their labour and their consequent economic dependence as it was their lack of familial headship. In this respect, the Levellers might not have been vastly different from their contemporaries. Cf. Macpherson, C.B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford, 1962),Google Scholar ch. iii. A similar objection to Macpherson—based on social structural evidence—was made by Peter Laslett in his extended review of Possessive Individualism: ‘Market Society and Political Theory’, Historical Journal, VII (1964), 150–4,Google Scholar esp. pp. 151–2 and n. I.

30 Morgan, Edmund S., The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth Century New England, paperback ed. (New York, 1966), p. 27.Google Scholar See also pp. 144, 147.

31 Laslett, World We Have Lost, p. 74.

32 [Tyrrell, James], Patriarcha non Monarcha: The Patriarch Un-monarch'd (London, 1681), pp. 83–4,Google Scholar corrected according to Errata following p. 260. Tyrrell was one of the major critics of Filmer's patriarchalism, but in this passage and throughout his tract, he revealed his acceptance of some of the assumptions on which the patriarchal theory of political obligation rested.

33 See Filmer, Sir Robert, The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy (1648), reprinted in Patriarcha and Other Political Works, ed. Laslett, Peter (Oxford, 1949), p. 287.Google Scholar The relevant passage was quoted by Tyrrell on p. 74.

34 Miege, Guy, The New State of England (London, 1691), p. 69.Google Scholar

35 Exod. XX. 12.

36 Laslett, World We Have Lost, pp. 8–9.

37 Ford, Simon, A Sermon of Catechizing (London, 1655),Google Scholar Preface, sig. G6. Original text in Italics.

38 Godfrey Davies has estimated that perhaps 360,000 sermons were delivered in England and Wales from 1600 to 1640, of which only 1,600 were published (‘English Political Sermons, 1600–1640’, Huntington Library Quarterly, III (1939–1940), 1).Google Scholar Cf. Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origin of Radical Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. 325.Google Scholar

39 The writings of Marshall McLuhan are, of course, central. See especially The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto, 1962)Google Scholar and ‘The Effect of the Printed Book on Language in the Sixteenth Century’, Explorations on Communication, ed. Carpenter, Edmund and McLuhan, Marshall, paperback ed. (Boston, 1966), pp. 125–35.Google Scholar

40 Ballard, J.V. (ed.), Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, (1604 London, 1934), pp. 62,Google Scholar

41 The visitation articles examined were in the libraries of the British Museum and Cambridge University. An attempt was made to see articles from at least three diocese for each decade and two or more sets of articles from each bishopric for the entire period under consideration. Because of the general disruption of the Civil War and the abolition of the episcopacy in 1646, no visitation articles were found for the years 1650–60 and very few for the period from 1641–9.

42 Baxter, Richard, The Catechizing of Families: A Teacher of Householders How to Teach Their Households (London, 1683),Google Scholar title page. For a more detailed statement of Baxter's attitude toward the catechism and catechizing see his Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor, Showing the Nature of the Pastoral Work (1656), ed. by Brown, William as The Reformed Pastor, Religious Tract Society, 5th ed. (London, n.d.), pp. 194,Google Scholar 209, 221, 222, 226, 278. Also relevant is Cragg, G.R., Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 129,Google Scholar 139, 178.

43 See Mitchell, Alexander (ed.), Catechisms of the Second Reformation (London, 1886), p. 43,Google Scholar referring to Gouge, William, A Short Catechisme, 7th ed. (London, 1635).Google Scholar See also Increase Mather's Preface to Falvell, John, An Exposition of the Assemblies Catechism (London, 1692).Google Scholar

44 The Catechism Made Practical (London, 1688),Google Scholar Preface, sig. A 9.

45 Sherlock, Richard, The Principles of the Holy Christian Religion (1661), 11th ed. (London, 1673),Google Scholar sigs. A4v-A5.

46 Mayer, John, The English Catechisme Explained: or, A Comentarie on the Short Catechisme Set Forth in the Booke of Common Prayer (1621), 4th ed. (London, 1630),Google Scholar Epistle, sig. A3.

47 Luther, Martin, Smaller Catechism (1529), translation in Schaff, Philip, A History of the Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (London, 1878), III, 75.Google Scholar

48 McDonough, Thomas C., The Law and Gospel in Luther: A Study of Martin Luther's Confessional Writings (Oxford, 1963), p. 71.Google Scholar

49 Calvin, John, The Catechisme or Manner to Teache Children the Christian Religion (1537; translation of 1556), Questions 194 and 195, reprinted in Bonner, Horatius (ed.), Catechisms of the Scottish Reformation (London, 1866), p. 45.Google Scholar

50 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, viii, 35, ed. McNeill, John T., trans. Battles, Ford Lewis, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1959), I, 401,Google Scholar 402. The bulk of Calvin's political teaching is found in book IV, ch. XX ff. (II, 1485–1521), and in this discussion, he neither mentioned the Fifth Commandment nor dealt with the origins of government.

51 Catechism of the Church of England (1549, etc.), reprinted in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, III, 519–20.

52 Westminster Assembly of Divines, The Shorter Catechism (1644), reprinted in Mitchell (ed.), Second Reformation, pp. 22–3.

53 Romans xiii did not disappear as an independent justification of (political) authority; it continued to provide texts for sermons throughout the period. But the coupling of Romans xiii with the duty to obey parents as an argument for obedience was very much a product of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the earliest examples of such a coupling I have found is Hooper, John, Godly and Most Necessary Annotations in ye. xiii Chapyter to the Romans (Worcester, 1551),Google Scholar sig. Div: ‘Feare is due unto GOD, the kyng, to parents, and to all others whome we be holpe [i.e. hold] in bodie or soule, and so is honour due lykewyse.’ (Original text in black letter.) See also the linking of the two justifications in Stephen Egerton's introduction to Pricke, Robert, The Doctrine of Superioritie, and of Subjection, Contained in the Fifth Commandment of the Holy Law of Almightie God (London, 1609),Google Scholar sigs. A6–A 7v.

54 Cranmer, Thomas, A Short Instruction into Christian Religion: Being a Catechism (1548), ed. Burton, Edward (Oxford, 1829), pp. 52,Google Scholar 53. Almost as if he anticipated seventeenth-century theories of the state of nature and social contract, the archbishop appears to have been saying that the state would not be necessary if men were sufficiently obedient without it, reflecting perhaps the Lutheran revival of the Augustinian attitude toward the Fall and the need for coercive restraint. Burton, the editor of this edition of Cranmer's Catechism, has called attention to its Lutheran content. (Introduction, p. xxii.)

55 [Poynet, John], A Short Catechism, or Playne Instruction (London), 1553,Google Scholar fo. viv. Original text in black letter. (This work, a translation of the Catechismus Brevis, is also known as King Edward's Catechism.)

56 Becon, Thomas, A New Catechisme Sette Forth Dialogue-wise in Familiar Talk betweene the Father and His Son, in The Workes, 3 vols. (London, 1560–1564), I, 338v.Google Scholar

57 Ibid. fos. 357–357v.

58 Short Questions and Answeres, Contayning the Summe of Christian Religion (London, 1614),Google Scholar sigs. B2v–B3. Original text in black letter.

59 SeeRam, Robert, The Countrymens Catechisme: or, A Helpefor Householders (London, 1655), p. 39.Google Scholar

60 See[Allestree, Richard], The Whole Duty of Man Laid Down in a Plain and Familiar Way (1658; London, 1842), Preface, p. xxvii.Google Scholar

61 Ibid., xiv, 1 and 2, p. 231.

62 [Wetenhall, Edward], The Catechisme of the Church of England, with Marginal Notes (London, 1678), pp. 28–9.Google Scholar

63 Mayer, English Catechisme (n. 46, above), pp. 303–306, quotation from p. 303.

64 Browne, Samuel, The Summe of Christian Religion, Shewing the Undoubted Truth, Holy Practice, and Heavenly Comfort Therein Contained (London, 1630),Google Scholar sig. Asv.

65 Usher, James, The Principles of Christian Religion (London, 1645), reprinted in Mitchell, p. 147.Google Scholar

66 Ussher, James, A Body of Divinitie, or the Summe and Substance of Christian Religion (1645), 4th ed. (London, 1635), p. 257.Google Scholar See also Ussher, James, The Sovereignes Power, and the Subjects Duty: Delivered in a Sermon (Oxford, 1644), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

67 Boughen, Edward, A Short Exposition of the Catechisme of the Church of England (1663; London, 1673), p. 53;Google ScholarNicholson, William, A Plain, but Full Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England (1655; London, 1663), pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

68 Baxter, Catechizing, pp. 291–6.

69 [Brailsford, Humphrey], The Poor Man's Help (London, 1689), p. 40.Google Scholar

70 Flavell, Exposition (n. 43, above), pp. 133–4.

71 See the discussion in n. 89 below.

72 [Mocket, Richard], God and the King: or, A Dialogue, Shewing That Our Soveraign Lord the King of England, Being Immediate under God within His Dominions, Doth Rightly Claim Whatsoever is Required by the Oath of Allegiance (1615; reprinted London, 1663), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar Philalethes passages of original text in Italics.

73 Ibid. p. 35.

74 DNB,‘ Mocket, Richard’, s.v. Cf. Wilson, David H., King James VI and I, paperback ed. (London, 1963), pp. 294–5.Google Scholar See also Willson, , ‘James I and His Literary Assistants’, Huntington Library Quarterly, VIII (1944), 54.Google Scholar

75 [Mocket], title-page.

76 This attitude was not peculiar to the literature on household government. It has recently been suggested that the confusions in Locke's doctrine of the contract and consent would be removed if his theory were interpreted as a discussion of how men become liable to preexisting political obligations rather than as a. justification of that obligation or a statement of its contents. See Dunn, John,‘Consent in the Political Theory of John Locke’, Historical Journal, X (1967), 153–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar My interpretation of the significance of the contract in master-servant relations should be contrasted with George and George, Protestant Mind (n. 8, above) pp. 295–305. The Georges stress the egalitarian aspects of the contract and see a ‘relationship between individuals, each of whom is essentially free’ (p. 297). I agree that the implications of the contract are individualist freedom and at least ad hoc, face to face equality, but I cannot see how the Georges' references support their contention that seventeenth-century Englishmen understood servitude in this manner. The difficulty, I think, stems from the Georges' having conflated the responsibilities of masters, which were duties of station, with obligations derived from the contract. See the discussion in n. 17, above.

77 Steele, Richard, The Husbandmans Calling: Shewing the Excellencies, Temptations, Graces, Duties, c. of the Christian Husbandman, 3rd ed. (London, 1681), p. 104.Google Scholar

78 Cobbett, Fruitfull and Usefull Discourse (n. 10, above), pp. 1–2.

79 Filmer, Anarchy, Political Works (n. 33, above), p. 289.

80 See any modern reprint of Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill (London, 1651),Google Scholar chs. xiii and xx; and my ‘Thomas Hobbes on the Family and the State of Nature’, Political Science Quarterly, LXXXII (1967), 427–45.Google Scholar

81 See Locke, Two Treatises (n. 3, above), II, 56, 58, 60, 65, 69, in conjunction with sections 2, 71, 169, 173. I have examined this problem in ‘The Family and the Origins of the State in Locke's Political Philosophy’, John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, ed. Yolton, John W. (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 81–98.Google Scholar

82 Fleetwood, Relative Duties (n. 18, above), pp. 86, 88–9.

83 Ibid. p. 394.

84 Edward Coke, Postnati, Calvin's Case, VII Coke Reports 12 (1606); text from London printing of 1727. The Biblical passage is from Rom. ii. 14, q.v.

85 Capel, Arthur, Scaffold Paper (1649), in The Dying Speeches and Behaviour of the Several State Prisoners that Have Been Executed in the Last 300 Years (London, 1720), p. 166.Google Scholar

86 Powell, Sumner C., Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, paperback ed. (New York, 1965), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

87 Woodhouse, A.S.P. (ed.), Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647–9) from the Clark Manuscripts (London, 1938), pp. 60,Google Scholar 61. Brackets in Woodhouse's text.

88 See, for instance, Gee, Edward, The Divine Right and Original of the Civill Magistrate From God (London, 1658), pp. 158–9,Google Scholar 183, and sig. (a7), respectively, for examples of each of these notions. Their having been used by Gee is significant, for he included in this lengthy treatise what is probably the first extensive criticism of Filmer's patriarchalism.

89 The manner in which I have raised this problem obviously begs the question. My purpose is to call attention again to some of the issues discussed in the introductory portions of this essay, particularly political legitimacy and the functional inescapability of mass support—however unconscious and even if the masses are inert and outside of a society's political selfperception—in order for a political system to persist. In these terms, the burden of my argument is that catechistical instruction performed an important part of this function of making the rank and file loyal. The other side of this same problem is conscious indoctrination. The recognition by someone—a member of the ‘élite’—that the masses must be encouraged or ‘taught’ to be obedient and the systematization of that instruction do not change or eliminate the functional necessity of loyalty. They do illustrate an appreciation of sociological facts and perhaps something about a society's having developed to a ‘level’ on which this appreciation would be both possible and relevant. Plato's ‘myth of the metals’, Rousseau's ‘civic religion’, and the role of capitalist ideology as explained by Marx are all cases in point. But for Stuart England the argument need not turn solely or even primarily on whether resistance was anticipated and therefore staved off by ideological persuasives to obedience. This was undoubtedly an important factor, as the tone and content of many of the previous quotations indicate, but structuring the question exclusively in these terms makes the evidence much more puzzling than it need be. On these grounds, overt inducements to obedience must be regarded as relatively unimportant in the seventeenth century because so much of the population was politically invisible—unless, of course, the fear and likelihood of large-scale disobedience were genuine and widespread. But if that were the case, we should expect to find repressive social policies and ‘terror’ rather than mere indoctrination. Thus, the historical explanation does not go far enough, for the evidence is still puzzling. This puzzle, I am suggesting, can be solved—or at least clarified—by providing a sociological framework within which the historical phenomena are accounted for.

90 Melden, A.I., Rights and Right Conduct (Oxford, 1959), p. 6.Google Scholar

91 The virtual self-evidence of familial relationships and their value in explaining other sets of rights and duties have been assumed by a number of twentieth-century commentators. See for instance, Cameron, J.M., Images of Authority: A Consideration of the Concepts of Regnum and Sacredotum (New Haven, 1966), pp. 22–3;Google ScholarFriedrich, Carl J., Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics (New York, 1963), pp. 220,Google Scholar 241; and de Jouvenal, Bertrand, The Pure Theory of Politics (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 45–54.Google Scholar

92 Pocock, J.G.A., ‘“The Onely Politician”: Machiavelli, Harrington and Felix Raab’, Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, XII (1966), 272.Google Scholar Pocock is speaking methodologically and has not identified patriarchalism as a specific ‘mode of legitimation’. For other such methodological statements—on which my argument at this point is heavily dependent— see Mills, C. Wright, Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills, ed. Horowitz, Irving L., paperback ed. (New York, 1963), pp. 423–52,Google Scholar and esp. pp. 429, 434, 443, 452. Also relevant is Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London, 1958), p. 81.Google Scholar

93 This interpretation of patriarchalism is developed at length in my forthcoming book Patriarchalism in Stuart Political Thought.

94 This expansion was accomplished in part by analogy, a most important method of reasoning in seventeenth-century English political thinking. See Greenleaf, W.H., Order, Empiricism, and Politics: Two Traditions of English Political Thought, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 21–6,Google Scholar et passim (index,‘ Correspondence’, s.v.). See in general, Walzer, Michael,‘On the Role of Symbolism in Political Thought’, Political Science Quarterly, LXXXII (1967), 191–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95 The methodology presupposed in the two previous paragraphs is part of an analysis of the nature of political philosophy in which I am now engaged. I owe much to Stephen Toulmin, E., An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (Cambridge, 1950).Google Scholar