The Sexual Contract

A feminist reinterpretation of social contract theory. Pateman argues that the famous story of an original contract, in which free and equal individuals create civil society, tells only half of what happened. The other half is a sexual contract, through which men establish a political right over women. Classic contract theorists defeated the old patriarchal claim, associated with Robert Filmer, that political power descends from fathers, but replaced it with a modern, fraternal patriarchy. Pateman reads Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, alongside Freud's story of the brothers who overthrow the primal father, to show how women are denied the status of contracting individuals while being bound by the marriage contract. She then turns to contracts of her own day, including employment, marriage, prostitution and surrogacy, and criticises the idea that a person owns property in their own capacities and can freely contract them out. Freedom by contract, she concludes, can create subordination. Critics question whether contract always masks domination and whether her reading fits every contract theorist.

It changes how readers see the social contract tradition and offers sharp tools for thinking about marriage, work, sex work and surrogacy.