Constructing Masculinity in Early Modern Europe and America, Essay Example

Drawing on period literature and accounts, Harvey argues that a precipitous shift took place with regards to the construction of the domestic from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. The shift, Harvey explains, was from a political patriarchalism wherein the home was a source of male power and authority, to new models by which the family could map their relationships to each other, models based on contract theory (2-5). In the new configuration, the home emerged as a source and locus of female authority, associated with a new conception of ‘domesticity.’ Drawing on Tosh (1999) for Britain and Norton (1996) for America, Harvey explores the shift from the perspective of the rise of individualism. Whereas political patriarchy and thus masculinity had a domestic foundation in most of the seventeenth century, in the eighteenth century a new emphasis on individualism promoted a shift to a more impersonal basis for power, grounded in the ideas of contract theory (6-8).

Harvey’s emphasis on the tensions within the patriarchal system are particularly interesting. Under the older model, men faced competition with other men as well as the prospect of being undermined by their wives, at least in less happy marriages (7-10). Although domesticity in the eighteenth century was constructed in terms of a primarily female space, men were still an integral part of the emotional and symbolic economy of domesticity, Harvey argues, drawing on the literature of the period as well as earlier studies of domesticity. Men were considered essential figures in the household, and of course they were consumers of the products of domestic culture, as the home became more market-oriented during this period (9-11). By drawing on such contemporary records as account books, diaries, bills and receipts, letters, memoranda, and the like, Harvey documents men’s participation in the domestic sphere, finding that there were a number of different styles of masculinity with regard to engagement with their households (20-23).

Works Cited

Harvey, Karen. The Little Republic: Masculinity and Domestic Authority in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford, 2012. Print.