Title: Marriage in seventeenth-century English political thought /
Authors: Peters, Belinda Roberts, 1952-
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Marriage Political aspects England.; Marriage England History; Despotism England History; Monarchy England History; Political obligation History; Social contract History; Great Britain Politics and government
Abstract: "Marriage was, in the first half of the seventeenth century, an important metaphor for the special political and religious standing of England, defining the contract between king and kingdom and uniting conceptions of authority in household and polity. Within this theoretical perspective, the liberties of the king's subjects were also associated with their marital rights, and royal tyranny was defined as usurpation of the authority of husbands. With the execution of Charles I, these links would be broken. By the early 1650s, contracts of political government would bear little resemblance to marriage, save in the highly contested work of Thomas Hobbes. And though manyRestoration radicals would grant subjects' liberties to 'fathers of families', marriage no longer held a special place in any theoretical perspective."--Jacket.
Contents: Part I: Marriage contract as political contract -- "Union is a marriage" -- "A mutuall covenant betwixt king and people" -- "From Adam's having bin alone" -- Part II: Subjection in oeconomy and polity -- "Life, liberty, and dower" -- "All natural power is in those which obey" -- "Life, liberty, and estate" -- Part III: Tyranny, chastity and liberty -- "As David's dealing with Uriah" -- "Taking you a wife for his own lusts" -- "His wife, said he, his wife! O fatall sound!"