Abstract
The statements quoted above range across a period of nearly two centuries. Despite their very different historical contexts, they share a common perception: that the domain of citizenship is properly the preserve of men. They also suggest, however, that women, without being citizens themselves, are somewhere present and, indeed, assumed in the understanding of citizenship. And it is the peculiar form of their presence — as ‘indirect citizens’ — that rules out any simple and unequivocal answer to the title question of this chapter. The first example will remind us that even the most egalitarian visions among the classical formulations of democratic participation conferred citizen status not upon individuals as such, but upon men in their capacity as members and representatives of a family (i.e. a group of non-citizens). The second statement invokes the indivisible unity of marriage — a magic formula which still in the twentieth century served as the most common justification for opposing women’s suffrage: women did not need the formal affirmation of political rights since they exercised them already — through men. To concede to such demands would, in fact, give them two votes and disenfranchise men! It is a general observation that in the case of women numbers, i.e. simple numerical accuracy, never seem to have counted for much.
Ce sont les bon pères, les bons maris, les bons fils qui font les bons citoyens (Portalis, a disciple of Rousseau, co-author of the code Napoléon)1
Innumerable unseen women will guard the entrance to those Division Lobbies tonight, and will be voting through us. It is now proposed, in addition, that they should have votes for themselves, thus practically having two votes, while we have none at all.’
(An opponent of women’s suffrage in the House of Commons, in 1910)2
Does someone’s natural desire to do well for himself, to build a better life for his family and provide opportunities for his children make him a materialist? Of course it doesn’t. It makes him a decent human being, committed to his family and his community, and prepared to take responsibility on his own shoulder.
(Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party Conference, 1988)3
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Notes
Quoted in W. Schubert, Französisches Recht in Deutschland zu Beginn des 19. Jahrunderts (Köln & Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 1977), p. 66.
Quoted in C. Rover, Women’s Suffrage and Party Politics in Britain 1866–1914 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 40.
Cf. V. Randall, Women and Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 3.
A. V. Dicey, Letters to a Friend on Votes for Women London, 1909, quoted in Rover, Women’s Suffrage p. 45.
Cf. D. King, The New Right. Politics, Markets and Citizenship (London: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 192 ff.
Cf. D. Held, Models of Democracy (Oxford: Polity Press, 1987), passim.
S. Moller Okin, ‘Justice and Gender’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, XVI (1) (Winter 1987), p. 64.
Susan B. Anthony who had to stand trial in the United States in 1873 — for having, illegally, voted. Quoted in A. Sachs and J. H. Wilson, Sexism and the Law (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1978), p. 86.
Cf. L. Kerber, Women of the Republic. Intellect and Ideology in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of South Carolina Press, 1980), p. 133.
Cf. Condorcet, ‘On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship’ (1790), in K. M. Baker (ed.), Concdorcet, Selected Writings (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976), pp. 97–104.
M. Walzer, Spheres of Justice. A Defence of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), pp. 53–68,.
R. A. Dahl,A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 4.
R. A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), p. 11.
T. H. Marshall, ‘Citizenship and Social Class’, in T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), pp. 65–122.
Cf. S. Atkins and B. Hoggett, Women and the Law (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), Chs 9 and 10.
Cf. S. Moller Okin, Women in Western Political Thought (London: Virago, 1980), Part II.
Cf. J. Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism. Women in Britain, France and the United States (London: Macmillan, 1985), Chs. 1and 2.
Rousseau, Emile, trans. B. Foxley (London, Melbourne and Toronto: Everyman, 1911), p. 326.
Cf. Mary Wollstonecraft,A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), pp. 100, 109.
Cf. U. Vogel, ‘Rationalism and Romanticism: Two Strategies for Women’s Liberation’, in J. Evans et al (eds), Feminism and Political Theory (London: Sage, 1986), pp. 17–46.
Cf. Rousseau, Politics and the Arts ed, A. Bloom (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960), Chs 5, 8, 9.:
J. Schwartz, The Sexual Politics of Jean Jacques Rousseau (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984), Ch. 3.
Cf. D. H. Coole, Women in Political Theory (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988), pp. 116–19.
Portalis, quoted in H. Conrad, ‘Die Rechtsstellung der Ehefrau in der Privatrechtsgesetezgebung der Aufklärungszeit’, in J. Engel (ed.), Aus Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Bonn: Hanstein, 1957), p. 83;
cf. also Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (New York: Hafner, 1949), p. 101.
Cf. U. Vogel, ‘Patriarchale Herrschaft, bürgerliches Recht, bürgeliche Utopie’, in J. Kocka (ed.), Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt: Deutscher Taschenburch Verlag, 1988), Vol. II, pp. 778, 780.
A. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer and M. Lerner (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1968), Vol. II, pp. 778, 780.
Cf. U. Vogel, ‘Equality and Herrschaft in the Marriage Contract: The Dual Legacy of Enlightenment Rationalism’, Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American German Studies Association, Philadelphia, Sept. 1988.
Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government ed. P. Laslett (New York: Mentor, 1965), II, section 142.
Cf. D. Schwab, ‘Die Familie als Vertragsgesellschaft im Naturrecht der Aufkärung’, Quaderni Fiorentini per la Storia del Pensiero Giuridico Moderno, I (1972), 357–76.
Christian Wolff, Grundsätze des Natur-und Völkerrechts, Worin alle Verbindlichkeiten und all Reche aus der Natur des Menschen in einem beständigen Zusammenhange hergeleitet werden (Halle: Rengerische Buchhandlung, 1754), III, I, 2, 870.
Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (Darien, Conn: Hafner, 1970), p. 259, n.l.
Samuel Pufendorf, Acht Bücher vom Natur—und Völkerrechte (Frankfurt: Friedrich Knochen, 1711), VI; I, 15.
Cf. C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Oxford: Polity Press, 1988), Ch. 6.
Cf. D. Schwab, Familienrecht 4th ed. (München: Beck Verlag, 1986), Ch. 6.
Gernhuber, Lehrburch des Familienrechts 3rd ed. (München: Beck Verlag, 1980), pp. 148–72; Atkins and Hoggett, Women and the Law passim.
Cf. A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1905), pp. 360–396.
Cf. G. Beitzke, ‘Gleichheit von Mann und Frau’ in U. Neumann, T. Nipperdey, U. Scheuner (eds), Die Grundrechte (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1954), Vol. II, pp. 199–242.
For another example of the explicit exemption of marriage and family life from the enforcement of Equal Status Law, cf. the case of Norway, in T. S. Dahl, Women’s Law. An Introduction to Feminist Jurisprudence (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1987), p. 116.
Cf. H. Land & H. Rose, ‘Compulsory altruism for some or an altruistic society for all?’, in P. Bean, J. Ferris, D. Whyness (eds), In Defence of Welfare (London and New York: Tavistock Publications, 1985), pp. 74–98.
Cf. C. Pateman, ‘Women’s Citizenship: Equality, Difference, Subordination’, Paper prepared for the Workshop on “‘Equality” and “Difference”: Gender Dimensions in Political Thought, Justice and Morality’, European University Institute, Florence, Dec. 1988;
K. B. Jones, ‘Towards a Revision of Politics’, in K. Jones and A. Jonasdottir (eds), The Political Interests of Gender (London: Sage, 1988), pp. 11–22.
Cf. C. Offe, ‘New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of Institutional Politics’, Social Research LII, 4 (Winter 1985), pp. 816–868.
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© 1991 Ursula Vogel and Michael Moran
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Vogel, U. (1991). Is Citizenship Gender-Specific?. In: Vogel, U., Moran, M. (eds) The Frontiers of Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21405-1_3
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