The Sexual Contract(s) of the Third Republic Sample Contracts
Charles SowerwineThe Sexual Contract(s) of the Third Republic • October 18th, 2005
Sixteen years ago, in The Sexual Contract, Carole Pateman argued convincingly that the creation of the public sphere was made possible by the creation of the private sphere, and that the public sphere was inherently or intrinsically masculine. The “Sexual Contract” was the implicit—fraternal—understanding between the would-be male citizens that their status as heads of households justified their assumption of the power—patriarchal—of the king; fraternity replaced paternity. This understanding, obviously, was not legal or formal; it was embedded in the modes of thought which made possible the breakthrough into liberal culture.1 Pateman’s argument has been widely accepted to explain the birth of proto-republican thought in the eighteenth century, but it has not yet been applied to explain the continued exclusion of women in the nineteenth century. That is the point of this paper.