Recent years have seen a great explosion of interest in women's history, and inthe history of the family and patriarchal attitudes-not least in seventeenth-century England. At that time patriarchalist thinking shaped English ideas notonly about the family but also about society and the state. Many thinkersargued that the state should be seen as a family , and that the king held thepowers of a father over his subjects. Fathers, they claimed, were notaccountable to their wives or children, and the king was not accountable to thepeople.

The classic texts of patriarchal political thinking were written by Sir RobertFilmer( 1588  1653), one of the most acute defenders of absolute monarchyin the seventeenth century. His political works are edited from the originalmanuscript and printed sources, with an introduction which locates Filmer'sideas in their historical and ideological contexts. These texts - to which JohnLocke replied in his influential Two Treatises of Government - provide highlyimportant documents for the understanding of political and social ideas at adecisive stage in the development of English attitudes.

Preface

Introduction

Principal events in Filmer's life

Bibliographical note

The authorship and dating of some works attributed to Filmer

A note on the text

Abbreviations and sources

Patriarcha

 Chapter I: That the first kings were fathers of families.

 Chapter 2: It is unnatural for the people to govern or choose governors.

 Chapter3: Positive laws do not infringe the natural and fatherly power of kings.

 Appendix: Three passages omitted in the Chicago manuscript.

The Free-holders Grand Inquest

The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy

The Necessiy of the Absolute Power of aU Kings

Observations Concerning the Originall of Government, upon Mr

Hobs 'Leviathan', Mr Milton against Salmasius, H. Grotius 'De

Jure Belli.

Observations Upon Aritotles Politiques Touching Forms of

Government, Together with Direaions for Obedience to

Governours in dangerous and doubtfull times

Select biographical notes

Textual notes

Index