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Civil society Quote by Carole Pateman

“Women are not party to the original contract through which men transform their natural freedom into the security of civil freedom. Women are the subject of the contract. The (sexual) contract is the vehicle through which men transform their natural right over women into the security of civil…” quote by Carole Pateman
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““Women are not party to the original contract through which men transform their natural freedom into the security of civil freedom. Women are the subject of the contract. The (sexual) contract is the vehicle through which men transform their natural right over women into the security of civil patriarchal right. But if women have no part in the original contract, if they can have no part, why do the classic social contract theorists (again with the exception of Hobbes) make marriage and the marriage contract part of the natural condition? How can beings who lack the capacities to make contracts nevertheless be supposed always to enter into this contract? Why, moreover, do all the classic theorists (including Hobbes) insist that, in civil society, women not only can but must enter into the marriage contract?””

Carole Pateman

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