Two Treatises Government John Locke - Faculty of Social Sciences ...

34/John Lockeverse runs thus, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thysorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Itwould, I think, have been a hard matter for any body, but our author, tohave found out a grant of “monarchical government to Adam” in thesewords, which were neither spoken to, nor of him: neither will any one, Isuppose, by these words, think the weaker sex, as by a law, so subjectedto the curse contained in them, that it is their duty not to endeavour toavoid it. find will any one say that Eve, or any other woman, sinned, ifshe were brought to bed without those multiplied pains God threatensher here with? or that either of our queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had theymarried any of their subjects, had been by this text put into a politicalsubjection to him? or that he should thereby have had monarchical ruleover her? God, in this text, gives note that I see, any authority to Adamover Eve, or to men over their wives, but only foretell what should bethe woman’s lot; how by his providence he would order it so, that sheshould be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the Laws ofmankind and customs of nations leave ordered it so: and there is, I grant,a foundation in nature for it.§48. Thus when God says of Jacob and Esau, “that the elder shouldserve the younger,” Gen. xxv. 23, nobody supposes that God herebymade Jacob Esau’s sovereign, but foretold what should de facto come topass.But if these words here spoken to Eve must needs be understood asa law to bind her and all other women to subjection, it can be no othersubjection than what every wife owes her husband; and then if this bethe “original grant of government, and the foundation of monarchicalpower,” there will be as many monarchs as there are husbands: if thereforethese words give any power to Adam, it can be only a conjugalpower, not political; the power that every husband hath to order thethings of private concernment in his family, as proprietor of the goodsand land there, and to have his will take place before that of his wife inall things of their common concernment; but not a political power of lifeand death over her, much less over any body else§49. This I am sure: if our author will have this text to be a “grant,the original grant of government,” political government, he ought tohave proved it by some better arguments than by barely saying, that“thy desire shall be unto thy husband,” was a law whereby Eve, and “allthat should come of her,” were subjected to the absolute monarchical