ABSTRACT
In his essay on Politics and the Arts Rousseau proclaims that "never has a people perished from an excess of wine; all perish from the disorder of women". In contrast, the "disorder of women" engenders all the vices and can bring the state to ruin. The belief in the essential subversiveness of women is of extremely ancient origin and is deeply embedded in our mythological and religious heritage. Rousseau's version of contract theory highlights the problems in an acute form. Individuals will more readily uphold the rules of civil association if they develop a sense of justice or a morality of order. The sense of justice is fundamental to the maintenance of public order. Rousseau and Freud offer a remarkably similar diagnosis of why women are incapable of developing a sense of justice. The emergence of the super-ego is bound up with the "original" momentous move from the family to wider communal life.
