Transformations of Patriarchy in the West 1500-1900 (review)

Transformations of Patriarchy in the West 1500-1900. By Pavla Miller (Bloomington, University of Indiana Press, 1999) 400 pp. $35.00.

Miller's book examines familial, political, and economic change in the West between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It argues that the dynamics of patriarchal governance provide a conceptual link between two dominant perspectives toward change in the West--one emphasizing demographic and economic forces, the other wars and state formation. An underlying theme is that developments during the sixteenth century at first strengthened patriarchal structures, but they also carried forces that ultimately undermined traditional patriarchal structures. Fraternal (adult male) forms of governance would replace them by the nineteenth century.

The book is ambitious and learned, with footnotes and bibliography comprising one-third the length of the text. The author draws from a wide variety of theoretical approaches--notably, feminist theory and the works of Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, and Norbert Elias, to provide a framework. Although the sources are limited to English, the selection of historical writings, especially on schooling, reflects wide reading and good judgment. The bibliography, like the book itself, is better for Britain, North America, and Australia than for the continent.

The first half of the book discusses state formation and economic change in early modern Europe. There is little that is controversial or surprising about these arguments. The originality lies in their linkage with themes of patriarchal organization. The field itself is in flux. For example, the notion of fraternal governance (as opposed to patriarchal) is a recent distinction. Miller uses this theme as an organizing feature for the process of change. It is both a result and a motor of change. Like any explanation that spotlights one cause, Miller risks oversimplifying a complex and multicausal process.

Although she "insists on regional diversity and uneven development," that point is often obscured in an argument that borders on the teleological (294). "The brotherhood of men needed to assert their healthy virility against a licentious, effeminate, and impotent absolute monarchy" (296). That is one way to interpret the French Revolution, but it is a symbolic one. The brotherhood of men was an ideal. Witness the Second Revolution of 1792-1794, as well as the further revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1870. There were many other class, political, and ideological contentions at work. "Journeymen had to win a status that clearly differentiated them from judicial infants and social children. At a particular chronological age, men with property in their own labor had to be recognized as citizens with full adult rights" (296). Why, when, and where did they "have to"?

The second half of the book emphasizes school systems. An unannounced theme is a variant on social-control theory of the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter 5 is titled "Worlds of Social Control: Civilizing the Masterless Poor." Miller emphasizes "civilizing" and "self-governance," but control rears its head in attempts "to 'civilize'--or make docile and inductive the labouring poor" (149). Every society attempts to transmit culture, but efforts in that direction are not the same as social control. Nor is civilizing a synonym for control. From a variety of purposes enunciated for schools (165), Miller emphasizes a particular kind of imposition: "Above all, however, they [schools] tried to moralize children" (220). Was not the first purpose to instruct? There is no reason to prefer Miller's explanation over others.

Miller's concentration on the writings of theorists obscures certain developments. Until late in the nineteenth century, most schools were in the hands of the church or itinerant schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. A missionary impulse prompted not just Protestants but also Catholics after the Council of Trent to "educate the countryside." The demand for schools outstripped the ability of central institutions to provide them. Moreover, students took messages different from what organizers intended. Miller provides little discussion of these popular forces.

Patrick J. Harrigan
University of Waterloo

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