ABSTRACT
While these debates are significant per se, one fundamental aspect is missing, or, at least, not well accentuated: the political discourse on absolute power, sovereignty, and the use of violence as a means to ensure order and safety, which was in place during early modern times and profoundly affected any understanding of the uses of power to safeguard one’s interests, whether by an individual ruler, a social group or an individual citizen. The authors of this special volume argue that all the above-mentioned issues can contribute to the development of a persuasive interpretative framework of domestic violence if contextualized within the debate on political power, absolutism and violence, that is, within the legal and political theories of the school of natural law and contractual concepts.
2. Family, patriarchy and the state: the sovereign uses of power The early modern period was a time of religious reformation and political centralization in their widest interpretations. It has been argued by scholars that both processes invoked ideas and created structures pregnant with meaning for women. Thus, the consolidation of political power in centralized states drew on the patriarchal family as a model and strengthened its authority. Absolute monarchies promulgated laws that enhanced the patriarch’s power. However, the breakup of the religious hierarchy fostered the spread of education and favoured the growth of individualism, which began to undermine familial influence. These changes also reinforced an increasing differentiation of men’s and women’s roles that was based in a growing market economy. So problematic was the role of women in a changing but still male-defined society that even the scientists of the early modern period found difficulty in reconciling their discoveries and their prejudices. For women especially, the changes created contradictions between social ideals and social reality, and gave birth to female protest, including the protest against male authority within the family.
