Locke accomplished much in challenging the absolute authority of hereditary monarchs and expanding the natural rights of humans. In the theoretical framework which Locke put forward, he captured the idea that all human beings have virtue and value in themselves, life and property, but he failed to truly extend these virtues to every human. Amongst that expansive population which he neglected, were women. In this short article, I will make the argument that, Locke fails to extend truly equal human rights to women through failing to acknowledge them as equals in relationships like marriage and as coequal as members of the human species. We will do this by exploring different situations where women are mentioned in Locke’s work including marriage, child-rearing, and marriage dissolution comparing the rights of men and women in each circumstance. It will then be discussed why it is that this foundational prejudice in his theoretical framework is consequential to today’s society.
In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke largely goes about defining the rights and relations of women in the context of marriage and the family. Here, the function of the construct of marriage is to ensure the preservation of the species. When Locke then makes this assertion, the relationship of marriage becomes less about the persons involved but much more about achieving a societal objective. When one considers that in this text women are mostly defined in the context of marriage and family, making these social constructs into an objective goal degrades the importance of women into simply performing a required function. Whereas large swaths of the text talk about men’s rights, roles, and duties for living in the social contract. It is almost as if, from Locke’s perspective, men represent the truly valuable part of the species and women represent only a necessary component in the manufacture of that species.
The view of women as a mere means to an end is further supported by the justification Locke gives for why marriage occurs and why it lasts as long as it does. “[the] female is capable of conceiving, and de facto is commonly with child again, and brings forth, too a new birth, long before the former is out of dependency” . This statement by Locke only serves to increase the growing chasm of inequity between men and women in marriage. It claims that the continuation of marriage after procreation is only necessary because women are dependent on men’s help to rear their non-independent children while women are also bound to continue to produce more offspring. This would suggest that, in Locke’s thought, women are innately dependent on men but nowhere in the text does he show that this dependence is reciprocated by men in relationships. Rather, this illustrates another instance where men are portrayed as the necessary leaders who are entitled to dominate family function and are naturally made to be so as the “abler and the stronger” . The only case where men are characterized as dependent in this work is in regard to needing a societal social contract . This shows that men are generally seen as more independent and thusly more capable in Locke’s view. When assumptions claiming that one sex is innately better than the other exist in the premises that create the social contract, it cannot follow that those party the contract are on equal grounds or have equitable preservation of rights. By establishing this hierarchy, between men and women, Locke weakens the idea of human rights in favor of rights for these two parties separately.
This departure from the focus on egalitarianism in relations and the oneness of humanity continues into parental power. While Locke claims that both parents should have equal authority over their child, he also asserts that the father should be entitled to decide matters on account of his being abler and stronger as previously expressed. Shortly after this, he attempts to make marriage less biased by expounding on these unions being dissolved. He does this by asserting that the right to dominion over a shared child is associated with the original contract that binds the marriage and not necessarily the dominance of one party over another. This, however, fails to create an equitable relation in so far as it still presumes that the parties had equal say in the formation of the contract. Within his discussion of what is appropriate terms for the settling of the dominion of shared children, Locke states that separation of parents should be settled by societal norms. To conduct the construction and performance of a contract in this way allows for the subversion of parties which that culture does not favor and more accurately preserves stigma and societal norms than it does innate human rights.
Locke’s conceptualization and operationalization of social contracts in the setting of marriage and divorce fail to protect both parties in equal stead. This is illustrated by not only how the contracts are formed in unfair ways but also how the parties form the contract on inherently unequal terms. While Locke claims that making these contracts is ultimately preserving the rights of all humans, he fails to achieve this goal by effectively giving half of the species fewer rights than the other. In the case of human natural rights in Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, he makes it clear that when he says human, he intends not only to convey species but also a hierarchy. In such a case where one believes humanity is of a singular, equally valuable composition, Locke’s hierarchy fails to preserve the natural rights of women.
There is, however, not much suprising about a historical male philosopher establishing an unfair, and extremely misguided, system of thought, so why is this of relevance? When we consider the sway which ideologies such as Locke’s had on the formation of western governments, it becomes integral to changing the systems which disfunctionally bind society together. The concepts which Locke uses to promote the idea of individually atomized masculine persons being the ideal constituent of society are the very ideas which divide people and cause inequitable relations between people. While this ideology was used to make the claim that each individual has rights and value within themselves, Locke fails to distribute these rights equally to all people. By doing this he set a dangerous and harmful precedent that has helped legitimize and institutionalize discrimination on a monumental scale. In order to then free society from its revolutionary turned opressor, a change in the fundemental reasoning with which we approach government must be affected.