Sir Robert Filmer és a patriarchalizmus szerepe a 17. századi angol politikai gondolkodásban
The Role of Sir Robert Filmer and His Patriarchalism in the 17th Century English Political Thought

Summary/Abstract: In seventeenth-century England social theory - and practice - gave husbands and fathers very wide authority over their wives and children. Influenced partly by the mentality of the age, and drawing mainly from the Bible, Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653), the most famous of the theorists of patriarchalism, tried to show that fatherly (patriarchal or kingly) authority was derived from God. The wife, children, and servants owed the father total obedience, according to the divine law of nature. God being the author of nature, the power of the patriarch was natural. According to Filmer the state is a family, and the king its father. Rulers, thus have fatherly power over their subjects. Just as a father’s power over his children does not stem from their consent, so the king’s power is not derived from the consent of his subjects, but from God. Kings, concluded Filmer, are accountable to God alone, and they have absolute power over their subjects, who can never resist their rulers. Together with Thomas Hobbes, Robert Filmer can be considered as one of the outstanding theorists of absolutism. For this reason there is a need to get his patriarchalism straight - to rescue it from John Locke’s distorted interpretation.

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