Household Politics
Conflict in Early Modern England
Don Herzog
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Household Politics
Conflict in Early Modern England
Don Herzog
About This Book
Early modern English canonical sources and sermons often urge the subordination of women. In Household Politics, Don Herzog argues that these sources were blatherânot that they were irrelevant, but that plenty of people rolled their eyes at them. Indeed many held that a man had to be an idiot or a buffoon to try to act on their hoary âwisdom.â Households didnât bask serenely in naturalized or essentialized patriarchy. Instead, husbands, wives, and servants struggled endlessly over authority. Nor did some insidiously gendered public/private distinction make the political subordination of women invisible. Conflict, Herzog argues, doesn't corrode social order: it's what social order usually consists in. He uses the argument to impeach conservatives and their radical critics for sharing confused alternatives. The social world Herzog brings vibrantly alive is much richerâand much pricklierâthan many imagine.
Don Herzog is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He is the author of four previously published books.