ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the House of Commons at Westminster shares many features with the Men’s Houses of certain primitive societies, where the male/female dichotomy is at its sharpest, and where the women are confined to the domestic space and are excluded from the Men’s House - the centre of the public domain. Tribal societies across the world rigidly exclude women from Men’s Houses and ritual secrets and their model for a male is sharply characterised by aggression, public display and self-confidence. The model for a female is equally familiar: the complementary one of submission, dependence and competence in the domestic sphere. The contrast in male and female emotional expression among the Iatmul has a parallel contrast in spatial location. The structural opposition of male/female in Victorian England has many similarities to that described of the Iatmul of New Guinea. The floor of the House is the centre of the political stage at Westminster.
