Thomas Hobbes

“ In the next place, we are to set down the third way of subjection, under the name of children; and by what title one man cometh to have propriety in a child, that proceedeth from the common generation of two, (viz.) of male and female. And considering men again dissolved from all covenants one with another, and that (Part I. chap. XVII, sect. 2) every man by the law of nature, hath right or propriety to his own body, the child ought rather to be the propriety of the mother (of whose body it is part, till the time of separation) than of the father. ”

“ And covenants of cohabitation are either for society of bed, or for society of all things; if for society of bed only, then is the woman called a CONCUBINE. And here also the child shall be his or hers, as they shall agree particularly by covenant; for although for the most part a concubine is supposed to yield up the right of her children to the father, yet doth not concubinate enforce so much. ”

“ And because generation giveth title to two, namely, father and mother, whereas dominion is indivisible, they therefore ascribe dominion over the child to the father only, ob praestantiam sexus; but they shew not, neither can I find out by what coherence, either generation inferreth dominion, or advantage of so much strength, which, for the most part, a man hath more than a woman, should generally and universally entitle the father to a propriety in the child, and take it away from the mother. ”

“ Again, seeing every monarch is supposed to desire to continue the government in his successors, as long as he may; and that generally men are endued with greater parts of wisdom and courage, by which all monarchies are kept from dissolution, than women are; it is to be presumed, where no express will is extant to the contrary, he preferreth his male children before the female. Not but that women may govern, and have in divers ages and places governed wisely, but are not so apt thereto in general as men. ”

“ Having shewed by what right the several sorts of commonwealths, democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, are erected; it followeth to shew by what right they are continued. The right by which they are continued, is called the right of succession to the sovereign power; whereof there is nothing to be said in a democracy, because the sovereign dieth not, as long as there be subjects alive; nor in an aristocracy, because it cannot easily fall out, that the optimates should every one fail at once ”

“ For he that subjecteth himself uncompelled, thinketh there is reason he should be better used, than he that doth it upon compulsion; and coming in freely, calleth himself, though in subjection, a FREEMAN; whereby it appeareth, that liberty is not any exemption from subjection and obedience to the sovereign power, but a state of better hope than theirs, that have been subjected by force and conquest. ”

“ For the pretences which a man may have to dominion over a child by the right of the mother, they be of divers kinds. One by the absolute subjection of the mother: another, by some particular covenant from her, which is less than a covenant of such subjection. By absolute subjection, the master of the mother, hath right to her child, according to section 6, chap. ”

“ Because the sovereign power is indivisible, it cannot be supposed, that he intended the same should be divided, but that it should descend entirely upon one of them, which is to be presumed should be the eldest, assigned thereto by the lot of nature ”

“ Nor if the monarch die without any will concerning the succession declared, is it therefore to be presumed that it was his will, his subjects which are to him as his children and servants, should return again to the state of anarchy, that is, to war and hostility ”