The Sexual Contract

As Pateman points out the political fictions of contract theory, it becomes clear that theorists have used the idea of contract to justify white male (and capitalist) domination in civil society. Explain how the political fictions of contract theory attempt to resolve the contradictions of a free and equal society that is characterized by relations of domination and subordination.

Using evidence from the text, explain the transformation of patriarchy from traditional paternal political right to modern fraternal political right. How does this transformation help conceal that modern civil society is structured by patriarchy?

The marriage contract plays a tremendous role in illuminating the sexual contract in the work of classic theorists. How do classic theorists conceal the sexual contract through the marriage contract, and how does Pateman uncover the sexual contract by examining the marriage contract?

Pateman examines contracts that women are party to and that involve the political fiction of property in the person. How does each contract undermine the political fiction, and what does this suggest about all other contractual relations?

Pateman demonstrates that modern patriarchy interweaves the private and public spheres even as it maintains their ostensible separation and considers the private sphere nonpolitical. Why is the private sphere also a political matter, and how do relations established in the private sphere extend into the public?

Socialist and feminist embrace of contractarianism typically relies on the terms established by contract theory. What are those terms, and how do they contribute to the oversights that Pateman points out? How is the embrace of contract subversive to feminist and socialist aims?

Pateman examines the slave contract and the employment contract as they relate to the contracts involving women and the sexual contract as a whole. She also suggests further examination of the slave contract in her concluding chapter. What might further examination of the racial, sexual, and capitalist aspects of contract reveal about the implications of contract for Black men and women historically and in contemporary times?

In the concluding chapter, Pateman suggests that contract as a political model be abandoned so that new political possibilities and democratic models can be explored. What might be some of the alternatives to contract, and how does the text support those alternatives?