Household Politics Conflict in Early Modern England Don Herzog

Early modern English canonical sources and sermons often urge the subordination of women. In Household Politics, Don Herzog argues that these sources were blather – not that they were irrelevant, but that plenty of people rolled their eyes at them. Indeed many held that a man had to be an idiot or a buffoon to try to act on their hoary 'wisdom'. Households didn’t bask serenely in naturalised or essentialised patriarchy. Instead, husbands, wives and servants struggled endlessly over authority. Nor did some insidiously gendered public/private distinction make the political subordination of women invisible. Conflict, Herzog argues, doesn't corrode social order: it's what social order usually consists in. He uses the argument to impeach conservatives and their radical critics for sharing confused alternatives. The social world Herzog brings vibrantly alive is much richer – and much pricklier – than many imagine.

Don Herzog is a professor within the University of Michigan Law School. He is the author of four previously published books.

"This is a delightful, humane book about misogyny and its workings. Herzog isn't afraid to discard academic jargon, the authority of canonical texts, and most of what we think we know about gender and power in the early modern world. Historians, political theorists, and really anyone interested in fresh thinking about conflict or the nature of the public and the private: "Household Politics "is for you."--Sophia Rosenfeld, author of "Common Sense: A Political History"--Sophia Rosenfeld, University of Virginia