Contract and Ideology: A Reply to Coole
| Published date | 01 April 1990 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1990.tb00174.x |
| Date | 01 April 1990 |
| Author | Carole Pateman |
| Subject Matter | Article |
CONTRACT
AND
IDEOLOGY=
A
REPLY
TO
COOLE
DIANA
COOLE takes issue with the central argument in my reinterpretation
of the story of the original contract and my
analysis
of actual contracts.
I
argue that modern patriarchy
is
contractual in form; Coole claims that
contractarianism should
be
seen instead as the legitimating ideology for
patriarchy.
This
view makes
feminist
argument seem comfortably familiar
and places
it
squarely inside conventional (leftist) political theory. Feminism,
it appears,
can
help in the task
of
sweeping aside a neglected element of the
ideological superstructure to reveal what Coole calls the ‘real foundation’ or
‘naturalistic basis’ of patriarchy.
There are three problems with
this
approach.
First,
the power of contract
is
seriously underestimated. Contract does not merely ‘legitimise’ or ‘facilitate’
certain relationships. Relations that constitute central institutions in modern
civil society, notably marriage and employment, are
created
through contract.
’Husband’
and
‘wife’ or ‘employer’ and ‘worker’
come
into being through the
mechanism of contract. Second,
I
do not see how Coole’s claim differs from an
idea that
I
take pains to criticise in
The Sexual Contract;
namely, that
patriarchy
is
a
feudal relic,
a
remnant of
an
old world or
of
natural foundations
that linger on
in
the new world of capitalism. Third, Coole’s criticism implies
that feminists can simply utilise the ready-made category of ‘ideology’ and
its
theoretical baggage. She finds
that
the ‘most compelling‘ part ofmy argument
is my critique of the fiction of labour power and the employment contract,
perhaps because
it
draws
on
familiar sources.
What
cannot be found
in
these
sources
are
my specifically feminist questions about, for example, the
relationship between the marriage and employment contracts and the sex of
the worker, and these questions depend upon my rereading of the contract
story. One of my
aims
in
The Sexual Contract
was to show how standard
approaches in political theory are inadequate to deal with patriarchal right
in modern civil society. The theories
in
which ‘ideology’ is prominent repress
the sexual contract every bit as thoroughly
as
the theories against which the
charge
of
ideology
is
directed.
The theoretical route advocated by Coole cannot illuminate the paradoxes,
ambiguities and ironies ofwomen’s standing within Anglo-American societies
that, political theorists proclaim,
rest
on the universal principle of individual
freedom andequality.
I
tried
to
bring out the historical andcultural uniqueness
of
modern
patriarchy
-
a
political order
in
which contract
is
both
the
doctrine
that starts life
as
the ostensible victor over patriarchy (and which
is
now seen
by many political theorists and feminists
as
the
enemy of patriarchy),
and
the
practice through which modern patriarchy
is
‘originally’ created and actually
30
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