THEORISING PATRIARCHY

Author(s): Sylvia Walby

Source: Sociology, May 1989, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May 1989), pp. 213-234
.Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd
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SOCIOLOGY Vol. 23 No. 2 May 1989
213-234

THEORISING PATRIARCHY
Sylvia Walby

Abstract The concept 'patriarchy', while being vital forfeminist analysis, has been
criticised fornot being able to deal with historical and cross-cultural variation inthe forms
of women's subordination. This paper presents a new way of theorising patriarchy to meet
these objections; one which is flexible enough to take account of itsvarious forms, but
rigorous enough to be an effective tool foranalysis. It leaves behind base-superstructure
models of patriarchy in which there is only one base, which have led to many of the
rigidities which have been identified, arguing instead fora model of patriarchy as six
partially-interdependent structures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the different
forms of patriarchy in recent British history.

Introduction

The concept of patriarchy is an essential tool in the analysis of gender relations.

However, some of the existing accounts using it have shortcomings. Critics of the
approach have suggested that the flaws are irredeemable. This paper is designed to
show that this is not the case; that while existing accounts have weaknesses, they are
not intrinsic to the concept of patriarchy.
The critics of the concept have focussed upon problems that existing theories of
patriarchy have in dealing with historical and cross-cultural variations in gender
inequality, and with differences between women, especially in relation to ethnicity
and class (Barrett 1980; Beechey 1979; Carby 1982; Coward 1978; Hooks 1984;
Molyneux 1979; Rowbotham 1981; Sargent 1981; Segal 1987). As alternatives they
offer either to explain gender inequality in terms of capitalism (the conventional
Marxist position), or argue that gender inequality is too complex and varied to be
traced back to any one structure (socialist feminist historians often argue this (e.g.
Rowbothom 1981) as do the post-modernist, post-structuralists (Alcoff 1988)).
In this paper I shall describe the criticisms only briefly, since they are now well
known, and focus upon the construction of an adequate theory of patriarchy which
takes them into account. I shall argue that patriarchy and capitalism are analytically
independent, and support this by pointing to the tensions between the two systems
over the exploitation of women's labour. Further, I shall construct a model of
patriarchy in terms of several partially interdependent structures, rather than a
simple 'base-superstructure' model. I shall specify the structures, then show how
they interesect at different periods of recent British history to produce different
forms of patriarchy.
First, the concept of patriarchy needs definition.

Definition
The variety of definitions of patriarchy has itself been a source of criticism by
those who are not happy with this approach (e.g. Barrett 1980). However, it would
be surprising if developing theories of patriarchy did not use the term in slightly

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214 SYLVIA WALBY

different ways. This is a necessary part of any theoretical development. It is

sufficient at this stage for the term to be clearly specified, so that the strengths and
weaknesses of different definitions can be properly explored.
Patriarchy as a concept has a history of usage among social scientists, such as
Weber (1947), who used it to refer to a system of government in which men ruled
societies through their position as heads of households. In this usage the domination
of younger men who were not household heads was as important, if not more
important than the element of men's domination over women via the household.
The meaning of the term has been advanced since Weber, especially by radical
feminists, who developed the element of the domination of women by men and who
paid less attention to the issue of how men dominated each other, and by dual
systems theorists who have sought to develop a concept and theory of patriarchy as a
system which exists alongside of capitalism (and sometimes of racism too).
Yet the practice of incorporating the generational element into the definition of
patriarchy has been continued by some of the major contemporary writers on this
question, most importantly by Hartmann (1979,1981). I think that the incorporation
of a generational element into the definition is a mistake. It implies a theory of
gender inequality in which this aspect of men's domination over each other is central
to men's domination over women. Yet in practice few contemporary theories of
gender inequality establish that this is the case. For instance, while Hartmann uses a
definition which incorporates generational hierarchy among men this is not central
to her theory of patriarchy, which focuses upon men's organisational ability to
expropriate women's labour in paid work, and hence in the household. Thus
inclusion of generation in the definition is confusing. It is a contingent element and
best omitted.
As a preliminary working definition of patriarchy, before developing the details
of its forms, I shall define patriarchy as a system of social structures, and practices in
which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.
The use of the term social structure is important here since it clearly implies
rejection of both biological determinism, and the notion that every individual man is
in a dominant position and every individual woman in a subordinate one.
Patriarchy needs to be conceptualised at different levels of abstraction. At the
most abstract level it exists as a system of social relations. In contemporary Britain
this exists in articulation with capitalism, and with racism. However, I do not wish to
imply that it is homologous in internal structure with capitalism. At the next level
down patriarchy is composed of six structures: the patriarchal mode of production,
patriarchal relations in paid work, patriarchal relations in the state, male violence,
patriarchal relations in sexuality, and patriarchal relations in cultural institutions,
such as religion, the media and education. Within each of these structures it is
possible to identify sets of patriarchal practices which are less deeply sedimented.
Any concrete instance will embody the effects, not only of patriarchal structures,
but also those of capitalism and racism.
I shall argue first that patriarchy is not reducible to capitalism, even in a mediated
way.
Dual Systems Analysis
Firstly, patriarchy both pre-dates and post-dates capitalism, hence it cannot be
considered to be derivative from it. Patriarchal relations exist in feudal societies

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 2 15

(Middleton 1981), and they exist in the so-called socialist countries. The argument in
response to this, that gender relations significantly changed with capitalism is no
obstacle to my argument. A change in the form of patriarchy is not the same as its
creation or demise (cf. Barrett 1980 and Mann 1986).
My analysis is then in terms of dual systems of patriarchy and capitalism, or rather
triple systems, since I do not think racism can be derived from capitalism or
patriarchy for similar reasons.
Existing dual systems theory considers the articulation of patriarchy and
capitalism in quite a variety of ways. They vary, for instance, as to whether they see
patriarchy and capitalism as fused into one system of capitalist patriarchy, as does
Eisenstein, or whether they are conceptualised as two analytically distinct, if
empirically inter-acting systems, as does Hartmann.
Eisenstein (1981) considers that the two systems are so closely inter-related and
symbiotic that they have become one. She considers that patriarchy provides a
system of control and law and order, while capitalism provides a system of
economy, in the pursuit of profit.
Other writers keep the systems analytically distinct. These writers themselves
differ in their mode of separation of patriarchy and capitalism. Some allocate
different levels of the social formation to the different systems, while others do not.
For instance, Mitchell (1975) discusses gender in terms of a separation between the
two systems, in which the economic level is ordered by capitalist relations, and the
level of the unconscious by the law of patriarchy. It is in order to uncover the latter
that she engages in her re-evaluation of the work of Freud. She rescues Freud's
concept of the unconscious from the fierce criticism of Freud's sexist interpretation
of women's sexuality and desires, in order to argue for the significance of the level of
the unconscious in understanding the perpetuation of patriarchal ideology, which
would ostensibly appear to have no material basis in contemporary capitalist
societies.
Hartmann' s conception of the relation between capitalism and patriarchy is
similar to that of Mitchell in that she does want to maintain the analytic separation
of patriarchy and capitalism, while Eisenstein does not. But Hartmann is different in
that she wishes to see patriarchal relations crucially operating at the level of the
expropriation of women's labour by men, and not at the level of ideology and the
unconscious. Hartmann argues that both housework and wage labour are important
sites of women's exploitation by men. Within the field of paid work occupational
segregation is used by organised men to keep access to the best paid jobs for
themselves at the expense of women (Hartmann 1979). Within the household women
do more labour than men, even if they also have paid employment (Hartmann 1981).
These two forms of expropriation also act to reinforce each other, since women's
disadvantaged position in paid work makes them vulnerable in making marriage
arrangements, and their position in the family disadvantages them in paid work.
While capitalism changes the nature of employment to some extent, Hartmann
argues that patriarchy pre-dates capitalism, and this expropriation of women's
labour is not new and distinctive to capitalist societies and hence cannot be reduced
to it. Hartmann supports her argument with historical examples of how women have
been excluded from the better jobs by organised male workers with, in some cases,
the support of the state. It is a powerful and important contribution to the
theoretical debate on gender relations.

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216 SYLVIA WALBY

One of the problems with 'dual systems' analyses such as the three discussed here
is whether they are able adequately to sustain the duality of capitalism and
patriarchy in their analyses. Young (1981) claims that this is an inherently impossible
task. Dual systems theorists usually sustain the distinction between capitalism and
patriarchy by allocating patriarchy and capitalism to different levels of society (in
the way that Mitchell (1975) locates capitalism in the economy and patriarchy in the
unconscious). If they do not do this and see patriarchal and capitalist relations in the
same site, then, Young argues, they are not able to establish and sustain an analytic
distinction between patriarchy and capitalism. If they make this distinction then they
are not able to account for patriarchal aspects in that level they have allocated to
capital, or capitalist elements in the level allocated to patriarchy. I think that Young
has identified a key problem in existing dualist texts, but that she is overstating the
strength of her argument when she declares this to be an inherent flaw in any future
dualist analysis. The specification of the nature of the separation between patriarchy
and capitalism is necessary and achievable.
I would argue that it is inappropriate to allocate different levels of the social
formation to the different systems, in the manner of Mitchell for the reasons noted
by Young. However, Hartmannů analysis is problematic in that it both
underestimates the tension between patriarchy and capitalism, and insufficiently
specifies the different structures of patriarchy.
Conflicts over the exploitation of women's labour between patriarchal and
capitalist interests is endemic to the history of the interaction between the two
systems. Without the notion of the separation of these two systems it would not be
possible to understand the changing sexual division of paid work.
Employers seek to employ women, when they are seeking cheap labour, because
they are cheaper than men. Husbands have historically resisted this process because
it undermines their control over and exploitation of women in the household. This
conflict of interest over the exploitation of women's labour has sometimes taken the
form of political struggle at the level of the state. For instance, the so-called
protective legislation of the nineteenth century sought to limit women's employment
in the best paid sectors of work (the mills and the mines were better paid and had
shorter hours than agricultural labour, domestic service and housewifery, which
were the main alternatives). This century male workers again utilised the state to
support their claims to privileged access to paid work in the legislation passed each
war-time, at their urging, which gave legal backing to the men's demands that the
women war-time workers be thrown out of their jobs at the end of the wars, so that
they could be given to men.
The conflict of patriarchal and capitalist interests do not have an inevitable
outcome. It has varied according to the localised power of male workers, employers,
and women. In engineering the exceptionally strong organisation of the engineering
workers led to the exclusion of women to a much greater extent than in cotton
textiles, which had a mixed workforce, and clerical work, where women were
employed as the majority of the new jobs, apart from the very top level (such as
accounting). The variations in the gender composition in these three areas of work
cannot be understood without the concept of patriarchy, nor without an
understanding of their historically and spatially specific interaction with capitalism.
This interaction between patriarchy and capitalism gave rise to specific forms of
occupational segregation by sex. While segregation by sex in work is not specific to

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 2 17

the articulation of patriarchy and capitalism, being found in feudalism, and post-
capitalist societies, it takes specific forms. It becomes deeply sedimented through a
variety of social practices, and indeed so entrenched that it forms a critical part of
the patriarchal structures in paid work.

Ahistoricism, Universalism and Diversity

One of the major criticisms of the concept of patriarchy is that itcannot deal with
the differences between forms of gender inequality at different times and places, nor
with the diversity of the experiences of women. This has been argued particularly in
relation to class and to ethnicity.

Ethnicity and racism:

The neglect of ethnic difference in many white feminist writings has come under
intense scrutiny and critique in several recent texts (Amos and Parmar 1984; Carby
1982; Davis 1981; Hooks 1982, 1984; Joseph 1981; Lorde 1981; Moraga and
Anzaldua 1981; Parmar 1982). Analyses from the perspective of women of colour
have raised a number of important issues for theories of gender relations, including
the following three. Firstly, the labour market experience of women of colour is
different from that of white women because of racist structures which disadvantage
such women in paid work. This means that there are significant differences between
women on the basis of ethnicity, which need to be taken into account.
Secondly, ethnic variation and racism mean that the chief sites of oppression of
women of colour may be different from those of white women. This is not simply a
statement that women of colour face racism which white women do not, but also a
suggestion that this may change the basis of gender inequality itself. The best
example of this is the debate on the family, which has traditionally been seen by
white feminist analysis as a major, if not the major, site of women's oppression by
men. Some women of colour, such as Hooks (1984) have argued that since the
family is a site of resistance and solidarity against racism for women of colour, it
does not hold the central place in accounting for women's subordination that itdoes
for white women. There is here a warning against generalising from the experience
of a limited section of women (white) to that of women as a whole.
A third issue is that the intersection of ethnicity and gender may alter ethnic and
gender relations. Not only is there the question of recognising ethnic inequality, and
the different sites of oppression for women of different ethnicities, but the particular
ways in which ethnic and gender relations have inter-acted historically change the
forms of ethnic and gender relations.
This critique is not specific to texts which use the concept of patriarchy, but is
applied to most white feminist writings, including those of socialist feminists and
liberal feminists. It is a serious criticism of existing texts.
However, most of these black feminist writers do not deny that there is inequality
between men and women. They are arguing that this takes varied forms, and that
racism may be of overriding political concern to women of colour. We need a
concept of patriarchy which is flexible enough to capture the variation in women's
experience and inequality between women.

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218 SYLVIA WALBY

Essentialism, Ahistoricism and Universalism:

A further major criticism, which is specific to the concept of patriarchy is that it
cannot capture the historical and cross-cultural variations in the forms of gender
inequality (e.g. Barrett 1980). Segal (1987) suggests that writings which deploy the
concept of patriarchy are essentialist. Indeed some feminist post-structuralists and
post-modernists have attempted to deny the category 'woman' because it is
considered to imply a static essentialist conception of gender relations (Coward
1978). The tension between feminist attempts to construct explanations of those
oppressions which are shared by women with the theoretical imperatives of the post-
modernist and post-structural writings of Foucault and Derrida are explored by
Barrett (1987), Fraser and Nicolson (1988) and Alcoff (1988).
I shall deal with the problems raised in three ways. Firstly, I shall show that the
problem is overstated, in that writers on patriarchy do recognise this diversity in
their empirical work, even if there are problems in the integration of this knowledge
into their theoretical schema. Secondly, I shall identify six different patriarchal
structures, in an attempt to provide the theoretical tools to overcome the problem.
Thirdly, I shall produce an argument as to the different forms that patriarchy has
taken in recent British history, to demonstrate the feasibility of historically sensitive
analysis.
It is true that many writers on patriarchy have constructed a single major base
which does cause some problems for the structure of the argument. For instance,
Firestone (1974) takes reproduction as the critical base; Delphy (1984) takes the
expropriation of women's labour in the domestic mode of production in the same way;
Rich (1980) takes the institution of compulsory heterosexuality; Brownmiller (1976)
takes men's violence, especially rape. In fact most aspects of women's oppression by
men have been taken as the basis of patriarchy by some writer or other.
This practice of taking one base does tend to produce an ahistoric and
universalistic theory of patriarchy. However, despite this, most of the writers listed
above do have a firm notion that patriarchy is different across time and space. It is
not true to say that they have a static image of patriarchy, while itis true that they do
not have the conceptual apparatus to produce a logical explanation of its different
forms. For instance, Brownmiller, who sees rape as the foundation of men's
oppression of women, is clearly arguing that the rate of rape, which is much higher
than is usually recognised, is historically variable, being higher in times of
militarisation and especially warfare. She provides empirical evidence to support this
view, but fails to provide a clear explanation of this variation. Indeed logically her
argument precludes this since she has no theoretical way of explaining changes in her
base of patriarchy, given that this has been constructed as the only causal entity in
her model and that it has no inner laws of development of its own. This problem is
common to the other models of patriarchy which set up a single causal base or
entity.
However, while it is fair to criticise these theories of patriarchy for not having a
theory of change, itis not appropriate to suggest that they all think that change does
not take place (although some do take this position). For instance, Firestone has a
well-developed model of change in patriarchy, despite having set up reproduction as
its sole basis. She does this by considering both technology and political struggle to
be further causal entities, although these are not integrated with her initially stated
theoretical position. Firestone argues that changes in technology produce the

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 2 19

capacity for change in the mode of reproduction, in much the same way that Marx
argued that changes in the forces of production created the possibility for the
emergence of the next mode of production. Firestone argued that women have to
seize the means of reproduction in order to achieve this transformation (a part of her
argument often glossed over by those who criticise her for naively optimistic
technological determinism). This is parallel to Marx's argument that the proletariat
has to seize the means of production in order to move to the next mode of
production. (Firestone intends the parallels with Marx). Thus in practice Firestone
introduces into her argument both technology and political struggle as causal
entities. However, she fails to integrate these into her theoretical discussion, leaving
it as a loose empirical end. In practice she has a model of change involving three
causal entities; in theory she has one. The major logical flaw in her argument is the
failure to elevate these empirically based notions of technological change and
political struggle into theoretical constructs. It might still be the case that we disagree
with her argument, but then she could not be dismissed at such a superficial level of
theoretical inadequacy.
Logically, any theory which attempts to grasp the variety in the forms of
patriarchy across time and space must have more than one causal structure.
However, few feminist theorists have attempted to work on the project of specifying
these.
Foord and Gregson (1986) provide one of the few attempts at the specification of
the structures of patriarchy within an explicit realist framework. They specify four
forms of relations which are a necessary part of patriarchy because they 'require an
internal relation between both men and women' (Foord and Gregson 1986:202). The
first two are transhistorical; the latter two historically and spatially specific. They
are: biological reproduction, heterosexuality, marriage, and the nuclear family. The
basis for the selection of these four is existing theoretical and historical work.
However, there are problems with the choice and characterisation of these four.
The absence of patriarchal relations in paid work, in the state and in male violence is
odd given the range of work which has argued for their importance in an analysis of
gender relations (Cockburn 1983; Hartmann 1979; Eisenstein 1979; Hanmer 1978;
Brownmiller 1976). This absence is not justified. Further, there is a question as to
whether the first two are usefully characterised as universal practices: not all people
biologically reproduce (priests, nuns, the young, the sterile); not all engage in
heterosexual relations. They may be universal as institutions, but they have varying
places in a patriarchal system. The argument for the selection of these four forms of
relations is not particularly well developed in their short article. So it usefully raises
the question as to the identification of the structures of patriarchy, but does not
provide a sufficient answer.
While few have explicitly argued about key structures of patriarchy within a realist
framework, many have argued about the relative importance of different aspects of
gender relations within looser meta-theoretical settings. I would suggest that
particularly important debates have taken place around the following axes:
materialist versus idealist (Barrett 1980; Delphy 1977; Mitchell 1975); the
significance of the family (Barrett and Mcintosh 1985; Hartmann 1979; Hooks 1984;
Humphries 1977; Lasch 1978; Morgan 1975); the significance and place of sexuality
(Dworkin 1981; Humphries 1981; MacKinnon 1982; Mitchell 1975; Rich 1980;
Vance 1984); the significance and place of men's violence (Brownmiller 1976;

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220 SYLVIA WALBY

Campbell 1987; Dobash and Dobash 1980; Hanmer 1978; Hooks 1984; Wilson
1983); the significance of politics and the state (Adams and Winstonn 1980; Chafetz
and Dworkin 1986; Eisenstein 1984; Petchesky 1986; Spender 1983). I shall consider
these in discussing the identification of key patriarchal structures.

Structures

I think that there are six main patriarchal structures which together constitute a
system of patriarchy. These are: a patriarchal mode of production in which women's
labour is expropriated by their husbands; patriarchal relations within waged labour;
the patriarchal state; male violence; patriarchal relations in sexuality; and
patriarchal culture.
These are defined in terms of the social relations in each structure. They are not
identified in terms of spatially located sites. For instance, the concept of 'household'
has a similar place in this schema to that of 'workplace' in Marxist analysis: it is
merely a concrete place, not a high level theoretical concept. Each structure is
composed of sub-structures and practices. For instance, the differentiation of full-
time and part-time work in the labour market is one of the patriarchal practices
which constitutes the structure of patriarchal relations in employment.
There are then three main levels of abstraction. The most abstract is that of the
system of patriarchy. The next most, the six patriarchal structures. The next,
patriarchal practices.
The six structures are derived both theoretically and empirically as will be shown
below (a fuller account will be found in Walby 1989). They represent the most
significant constellations of social relations which structure gender relations. Six is
the smallest number of structures which can adequately grasp the varied forms of
women's oppression in the period and place under consideration.
These are valid for Britain over the last couple of centuries, and for most
industrialised nations. They may be more generally applicable than this, though I am
not claiming that they are necessarily universal through time and space. However, I
am arguing that they do have a considerable, even though temporary, duration
through time and space. In other times and places the major forms of sedimentation
of gender relations in social structures may vary. For instance, patriarchal relations
in waged labour cannot exist in societies in which there is no waged labour, although
in most societies a distinction between household labour and more 'public' labour is
usually valid.
I do not think these caveats weaken the power of the concept of patriarchy. On the
contrary they are necessary to avoid the problems of formalism and structuralism.
Only if societies had the attributes of closed systems would it be appropriate to
specify universally valid structures. Since they are clearly open rather than closed
systems (Bhaskar 1979; Sayer 1984) structures cannot be specified once for all time.
Any attempt at theorising must balance between on the one hand reducing the
complexity of the world to a limited number of elements to produce analytic power,
while on the other, not to over-simplify in order to be able to capture the specifics of
the situation.
I am using a concept of social structure which has similarities to that of Giddens
(1984), in the sense of institutionalised features of society which stretch across time

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 221

and space, which involve the dual aspects of reflexive human action and of their
continuity over and above the individuals involved in any one instant. Differences
between my account and Giddens are that I do not emphasise the role of language to
the same extent, and that I consider structure to be less individually constituted than
Giddens' view of it as 'memory traces'.

The Patriarchal Mode of Production

The patriarchal mode of production is one of two patriarchal structures operating

at the economic level. Women's labour is expropriated by their husbands within the
marriage and household relationship. The defining feature is the relations of
production under which the work is performed rather than the tasks which
constitute the work (see Delphy 1984). The work performed by the woman may
range from cooking and cleaning for the husband to caring for their children.
Women, as housewives, perform this work for husbands (and, in certain
circumstances, as daughters for fathers). In these relations of production the
housewife is engaged in labour for her husband who expropriates it. She is not
rewarded with money, for this labour, merely her maintenance (sometimes). Rather
it is part of the marriage relations between a husband and wife. The product of the
wife's labour is labour power: that of herself, her husband and her children. The
husband is able to expropriate the wife's labour because he has possession of the
labour power which she had produced. He has effective possession of the fruits of
her labour. He is able to sell this labour power as if itwere his own. (See Walby 1986
for a fuller account of this.)
Thus far the structure of housework has been specified theoretically. There are
three stages to my claim: firstly, that the domestic division of labour is a major form
of differentiation of men and women; secondly, that this has significant effects on
other aspects of social relations; thirdly, that this in itself is a form of significant
inequality. Time budget studies and other studies of the domestic division of labour
demonstrate the unequal amounts of housework and indeed total labour time
performed by the spouses (Cowan 1983; Gershuny 1983, 1987; Oakley 1974; Vanek
1980). Other studies of the unequal division of household resources show that
women have a lesser share in the consumption of household goods than do men,
ranging from food, to leisure time (Deem 1986; Delphy 1984; Pähl 1983).
One objection to my construction of the patriarchal mode of production as a
structure is that, while the domestic division of labour is uneven, itis not to women's
disadvantage (Hooks 1984; Humphries 1977). Humphries and Hooks argue that the
family is not oppressive to women of the most subordinate groups, the working class
for Humphries, and people of colour, for Hooks, because itis part of an alliance of
the oppressed group against the superordinate group, the bourgeoisie for Humphries
and whites, for Hooks. Humphries argues that the family enables the working class
to provide humane support for those of its members who are unable to obtain a
wage, such as the old and the sick, and that in enabling the working class as a whole
to control the supply of labour itacts to prevent the reduction of the living standard
of the working class family. Hooks argues that for those women for whom waged
labour is boring, badly paid work in alienating conditions, as is the case for most
women of colour, the option of domestic work, especially with children, is

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222 SYLVIA WALBY

preferential because it is more interesting and less alienating. Further the family has
been an important basis for the mobilisation against racism.
My argument is not that women think marriage and the domestic division of
labour is disadvantageous to them, or even that for individual women marriage is
not advantageous in comparison with other existing options. On the contrary,
women marry because they think they will benefit, and for many, though not all,
this is almost certainly the case. Marriage is often the lesser of the evils in the limited
options open to most women. Further, Hooks is right to point out the different place
of the family in the lives of black women compared with white women. However,
these points are not inconsistent with my argument on the level of the objective
differences in the amounts of labour performed by husband and wife in which the
wife does more than the husband. Nor is this point contested by these writers. Their
argument is firstly, that women choose this way of life (with which I do not
disagree). And secondly, that this means that the family is in the interests of women,
with which I do disagree. Their argument at this stage depends upon the
identification of the class and ethnic exploitation of women as of greater significance
than their oppression as women. Even if this point were to be granted, it does not
mean that husbands do not expropriate their wives' labour as well.
In specifying the patriarchal mode of production as a structure, there is an issue as
to whether to identify reproduction as a structure independent from 'production',
and what the relationship between them is. The term 'reproduction' is often used to
cover several different concepts and they can be misleadingly conflated. In
particular the social process of the creation of the next generation of human beings is
often conflated with the social re-creation of the social system and/or with the
biological processes of fertility. The commonest use of the term in relation to gender
is that of the social reproduction of labour power. To this usage I have the greatest
objection: at a logical level there is little work which is not concerned with the
reproduction of labour power, hence it does not discriminate; processes varying
from building motor cars to factory production of bread are concerned with this (see
Delphy 1984 for a full account of these problems). Further the same task may be
performed in the household at some historical moments and not at others. The
tendency to conflate reproduction with housework is thus a problem.
The question which concerns me here is whether fertility and reproduction
constitute a separate structure or whether these aspects of gender relations are an
effect of other structures. There are significant levels of their determination which
are outside the domestic sphere, such as the state's intervention on issues such as
abortion and contraception (Gordon 1977; Luker 1984; Petchesky 1986), sexual
practice (Gordon 1979; Luker 1978), and the domestic division of labour, and of the
women's access to paid work (Gittins 1982). I think this makes reproduction not a
structure, since the causal powers lie with other entities.

Patriarchal Relations in Paid Work

Patriarchal relations in paid work form the second of the patriarchal structures at
the economic level. The key feature of patriarchal relations in paid work is that of

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 223

closure of access by men against women. This involves the exclusion of women from
paid work or the segregation of women within it. This leads to the devaluation of
women's work and low wages for women, which itself becomes a social fact with
determinate effects, not only on women's paid work, but in other areas including the
domestic sphere and other aspects of gender relations. The social relations are
between the excluder and de valuer, men, on the one hand, and the excluded and
devalued, women, on the other. This is the critical aspect of the relation; its concrete
realisation will also depend on capitalist and racist forces.
There is an identifiable structure of patriarchal relations in paid work. Women's
position in paid labour cannot be reduced to either or both of capital and the family,
as both Marxist feminists such as Beechey (1977, 1978) and neo-classical economists
such as Mincer (1962, 1966) have argued.
Within the sphere of paid work the most important concrete aspect of patriarchal
relations in industrialised countries today is that of occupational segregation. A
century ago the practice of total exclusion of women from large areas of the better
paid employment was at least as important, but there has been a significant
diminution of such bans in recent decades (see Walby 1986). Also the practice of
paying women less on the overt grounds that they were women was once a highly
significant form of patriarchal practice; with the passing of equal pay legislation in
most of the Western world in the last decade or two, this is no longer routinely done
in an open fashion, but proceeds as an indirect consequence of occupational
segregation.
Segregation takes several forms, vertical and horizontal (see Hakim 1979), and
that between full-timers and part-timers (see Robinson and Wallace 1984). Women
and men are segregated into occupations at different steps in the vertical hierarchy,
and side ways from each other in the form of horizontal segregation. Since wages are
attached to jobs, this provides the possibility for differential wage rates being paid.
Women's jobs are usually graded as less skilled than those of men, even if there is
little technical support for such an evaluation (Phillips and Taylor 1980; Treiman
1979). The differentiation between full- and part-time makes significant differences
to the amount of legal protection given to employees (Hakim 1987). Further, most
part-time jobs are at the bottom of the jobs hierarchy (Dex 1987; Martin and
Roberts 1984).
I want to argue that changes in patriarchal domination in paid work are one of
two processes which are key to understanding changes in women's oppression in
Britain over the last two centuries and that changes here have had significant causal
impacts upon other structures.
This structure cannot be understood outside the inter-relationship with capitalist
relations of production. Where patriarchy is in articulation with other modes of
production these relations will be different. For instance, the market in labour
structures women's access to paid employment. Where the market is less developed,
as in state socialism in Eastern Europe, or peripheral, such as under Feudalism,
other modes of regulation take priority. However, the differences between these and
capitalism should not be over-stated, since the argument about labour market
structures in contemporary society is precisely that they do not work in a free,
perfectly competitive manner, but are deeply structured by institutionalised power.
Occupational segregation by sex appears to be a feature of the organisation of
labour not only in capitalist countries, but in feudal and state socialist ones as well.

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224 SYLVIA WALBY

Patriarchal State

The state is another patriarchal structure. Its impact on gender relations is not a
consequence of it also being a capitalist state (cf. Mcintosh 1978), but of the
patriarchal nature of the state. Women are excluded from access to state resources
and power as part of a patriarchal system. This is only partly due to women being
relatively excluded from a direct presence in the state, but also, more significantly,
as a result of their lack of power within the gendered political forces brought to bear
on the state. Patriarchal closure against women in the key decisional arenas of the
state can be found in a variety of constituent practices. Denial of the vote until sixty
years ago was overt, while today more indirect forms of exclusion result in women
making up only six per cent of the Members of Parliament. More importantly,
women do not have as much power to bring to bear on the state as men. Similar
considerations apply to the various branches of the state, such as the judiciary,
police and legal system, where not only are women not represented as well as men in
the decision-making positions, but they do not have as much power to bring to bear
on the resolution of issues in their favour.
The argument that the state is a patriarchal structure does not imply that the state
is a monolith. Indeed there are frequently conflicts between different branches of the
state over different patriarchal strategies, and between the representation of
patriarchal and capitalist interests. For instance, there have been conflicts over the
regulation of women's paid work (Witz 1986), and over whether women should be
called into the workforce to make munitions in the Second World War or left at
home in a traditional patriarchal setting (Summer field 1984).
The patriarchal relations in the state have a series of significant effects on gender
relations. For instance, it shapes the rules on divorce and marriage (see Leonard
1978; Weitzman 1986); fertility, by legalising or criminalising abortion (Petchesky
1986), contraception (Gordon 1979) and the new reproductive technologies (Arditter
et al. 1984); wage discrimination (Snell 1979); sexuality, by court rulings on the
custody of the children of lesbian mothers (Hanscombe and Forster 1982), on male
homosexuality (Plummer 1981), on prostitution (Walkowitz 1980), and on
pornography (Dworkin 1981; Vance 1984); male violence, by court practice in cases
of rape and battering (Pähl 1985), and by its policy on housing priorities for battered
women (Binney, Harkel and Nixon 1981); and on belief systems by, for instance,
setting the parameters within which religions may operate (Ruether 1974).

Male Violence

Male violence often appears to be a random individual phenomenon, sometimes

thought of as a result of psychological derangement in a few men (e.g. West, Roy
and Nichols 1978). In reality it has a social structural nature. Its patterning cannot
be understood in terms of individual psychologies. Men use violence as a form of
power over women. Not all men actively need to use this potential power for it to
have an impact on most women. It has a regular social form and, as a result of
women's well-founded expectations of its routine nature, has consequences for
women's actions. It is constituted as a set of various practices including: rape, wife-
beating, father/daughter incest, flashing, sexual harassment at work, sexual assault.

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 225

It is significant in shaping women's actions, and therefore may be considered to have

causal power. It is common, and cannot be written off as exceptional (Hanmer and
Saunders 1984; MacKinnon 1987; Sedley and Benn 1982). It is not the result of a few
deranged men (Amir 1971), nor confined to a violent sub-culture, but is related to
normal patterns of male behaviour (Jackson 1978). It is routine in the forms that it
takes, between men and women. The availability of violence to men as a resource in
dominance over women is structured by the lack of state intervention to stop this
(Hanmer and Saunders 1984); unless the violence is 'extreme' and in 'inappropriate'
circumstances, for instance on a strange woman in a public place, itis tolerated and
condoned by the patriarchal state. This form of force is further organised by a
discourse which legitimates certain forms of violence against women in specific
contexts (Jackson 1978).
Most women significantly alter their conduct and patterns of movement as a
consequence of fear of male violence (Brownmiller 1976; Hanmer and Saunders
1984; Stanko 1985). For a significant number of instances it is designed to alter
women's actions in a systematic and routine way both in a domestic setting (Dobash
and Dobash 1980) and the paid workplace (MacKinnon 1979). It has routine effects.
It is historically variable and not a biological constant (Brownmiller 1976; Morrell
1981; Shorter 1977). Male violence interacts with other patriarchal structures, having
a variable historical significance. Brownmiller is able to demonstrate a link between
an increase in militarization of society and an increase in the rate of rape.
Conventionally, the state is seen to have a monopoly of legitimate coercion in a
given territory (Weber 1947). In the instance of men's violence to women, this causes
an interesting dilemma. Since this violence is condoned by the state in practice (since
it does not move against any but the most blatant and severe instances), it may be
considered to be legitimated by the state. Yet, according to Weber's definition of the
state, legitimate coercion is its monopoly. Does this make violent men part of the
state apparatus? Yet to do this runs counter to the usual sociological conception of
the state as a centralised agency. Thus we have to abandon either the notion that the
state has a monopoly over legitimate coercion, or the notion that the state is a
centralised agency. I think the latter is more important to the concept of the state, so
I propose to abandon the notion that the state has a monopoly of legitimate coercion
in a given territory.

Patriarchal relations in sexuality

Sexuality is also an important patriarchal structure. The key set of patriarchal

practices here is especially that of heterosexuality: both its compulsory nature and its
internal structure such as the double standard. Thus itis a structure both in the sense
of the primacy given to this form of sexual practice as distinct from lesbianism and
homosexuality, and in the sense of the unequal relations within this sexual practice.
Its major causal significance is in orienting women towards marriage as a desirable

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226 SYLVIA WALBY

goal, and, in the twentieth century, to the stigmatizing of close female friendships
through their sexualisation and simultaneous negative evaluation of that imputed
sexuality.
Sexuality is a set of social practices, and cannot be reduced to the psychological or
biological levels (Foucault 1981; Rich 1980; Jackson 1978). It is historically and
cross-culturally variable in its forms (Oakley 1972; Faderman 1981; Foucault 1981).
It has effects upon other aspects of gender relations. The extent of these effects is
subject to some controversy.
I want to argue that sexuality is more important in constructing social relations
than is customary in social theory, but less important than that accorded itby many
radical feminist writers. Much radical feminist theory gives an important place to
sexuality. It is given more significance than is to be found in most other feminist
tendencies; some of which have nothing at all to say on this subject. This is true from
the work of Millett (1977) in the early period of second-wave feminism, to more
recent radical feminist theorists such as MacKinnon (1982).
MacKinnon suggests that sexuality is to feminism what labour is to Marxism
(MacKinnon 1982:2); central and of overwhelming significance. MacKinnon sees
male control of women as taking place through sexuality. It is via sexuality that men
are able to objectify and dominate women. MacKinnon does not merely argue that
the sexual is a most important level of women's subordination, she argues that is it
through the sexual that women are constructed as women and men as men. Sexuality
is the way in which genders are socially identified and constructed. Hence she
inter defines sexuality and gender; there is no separation between these two concepts
in her analysis. We can no longer ask how important is sexuality for men's
subordination of women, since these concepts are conflated.
This is a mistake because it prevents us from being able to identify the causal
power of sexuality. This is historically and spatially specific. Milletťs analysis of
sexuality in her critique of the literary work of D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and
Normal Mailer shows that these writers were part of a sexual counter-revolution, to
push back the advances which women had won during first-wave feminism. The
terrain of this patriarchal counter-offensive was that of sexuality. So Millett gives us
a historically specific account of sexuality, suggesting that its form and expression
are not universal constants, but rather the product of specific historical
conjunctures.
During the nineteenth century 'respectable' women were excluded from sexual
practices with people other than their life-long husbands. Today, serial monogamy,
via marriage or co-habiting is condoned and non-marital sexual contacts are not as
prohibited. However, these are forms of sexual contact in which men are dominant
in terms of defining the nature of the sexual practices and the social arrangements in
which they are embedded. While the first mode opens up an independent space for
non-married women to be personally autonomous from men, the second stigmatises
all women who are not engaged in heterosexual practice, whether or not. That is, the
form of sexuality changes significantly.
Some feminists have argued that sexuality is more important today in the
subordination of women, as a consequence. That is, the relative significance of this
structure has increased. It must be treated independently for this question to be
explored. I think they overstate the increase in overall control, while they are right to
point to important changes in the form of control over sexual practices.

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 227

Sexuality needs to be identified separately, not conflated into gender itself. Its
historically variable significance for women's subordination means that it needs to
be specified as a separate structure. Hence I am arguing that sexuality is a separate
structure and should not be conflated into other aspects of women's subordination.

Patriarchal Culture

Patriarchal culture is a structure which is composed of a relatively diverse set of

patriarchal practices. They are important in shaping gendered subjectivity, in the
distinction of the genders at an experiential level. Patriarchal culture is best analysed
as a set of discourses which are institutionally-rooted, rather than as ideology which
is either free-floating or economically-determined.
There is more than one discourse on femininity and on masculinity. They vary by
age, class and ethnicity in particular. For instance Coward (1978) traces several
within different women's magazines, contrasting Cosmopolitan with Woman's
Own. But they have in common the differentiation of masculinity from femininity.
Religions have historically been very important patriarchal discourses, laying
down correct forms of conduct for men and for women. The policing of these
conducts has been variable, from burning women who assumed too much power as
'witches' at the stake, to the inducement of guilt about extra-marital sex in
confessionals.
The educational system has been important in both differentiating men and
women and providing men with more credentials. The forms of closure against
women are usually more subtle because of the explicit discourse of 'meritous
achievement'.
Discourses on feminity and masculinity are institutionalised in all sites of social
life, not only in those institutions such as religions, media and education, which have
cultural production as a central goal. For instance, masculine identity is importantly
bound up with notions of work. Only certain forms of work will provide its
practitioners with a reinforcement of their masculinity. This is well illustrated in
Cockburn's (1983) account of men's struggle to maintain old forms of labour
process in the print industry, where the new forms of typesetting via keyboarding
threatened not only their jobs and rates of pay, but their sense of their masculinity.

Forms of Patriarchy

Patriarchy can take different forms; it is not a universalistic notion, despite the
arguments of critics. The different forms are dependent upon the interaction of
patriarchal structures set out earlier. In different times and places some of the
structures are more important than others. The elimination of any one patriarchal
structure does not lead to the demise of the system as a whole. Logically there could
be many forms, since I have identified six structures of patriarchy, and two other
major systems with which it has been in articulation. I am going to suggest that in
recent Western history there have been two major forms of patriarchy, one of which
can be usefully subdivided into two.

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228 SYLVIA WALBY

The two main types are those of public and private patriarchy. Private patriarchy
isbased upon the relative exclusion of women from arenas of social life apart from
the household, with a patriarch appropriating women's services individually and
directly in the apparently private sphere of the home. Public patriarchy does not
exclude women from certain sites, but rather subordinates women in all of them. In
this form the appropriation of women takes place more collectively than
individually.
The notion that there are two major forms of patriarchy is introduced in the work
of Dworkin (1983) and Brown (1981) although they identify the structures of
patriarchy somewhat differently from the way that I have done. Dworkin
emphasises the sexual dimension in the differentiation of the two forms of
patriarchy, while Brown is concerned only with labour. I think that the distinction
between private and public forms of patriarchy does grasp important differences in
form, but Dworkin and Brown's accounts are limited by their restriction to limited
arenas. When all six patriarchal structures are included the account is more
satisfactory.
There has been a movement towards the private form, and then a movement away
to the public form in Britain over the last two centuries. The eighteenth and most of
the nineteenth century saw a movement towards a more intense private form. This
reached its height in the middle of the nineteenth century in the middle classes. There
was an intensification in the domestic ideology, and the extent to which middle class
women were excluded from the public sphere (Davidoff and Hall 1987; Gilman
1966; Pinchbeck 1981; Schreiner 1981; Tilly and Scott 1978). Women, especially
married women and middle class women, rarely worked in public, only in their own
households. There were strong sanctions against non-marital sexuality for such
women. Women were excluded from the public sphere of the state, lacking
citizenship rights such as suffrage and, if married, the ability to own property.
Husbands' violence against wives was condoned. Cultural institutions, such as the
church, supported the notion that a woman's place was in the home. While there
were some limits and contradictions to this, for instance, it was applied to middle
class women to a much greater extent than working class women, they do not
undermine the general case.
The form of patriarchy which is prevalent in Britain today is of a more public
kind. Women are not excluded from the public sphere to the same extent. However,
having entered the public sphere, women are subordinated there. Most women of all
social classes engage in paid work, but there is a considerable wages gap between
men and women, and extensive occupational segregation. The sanctions on non-
marital sexuality are, while still present to a greater degree for women than men,
much less severe. At the same time the circulation of sadistic pornographic images
has increased. Marriages can be ended by divorce, and increasingly are. While this
frees women from marriages which are especially oppressive they still remain
responsible for childcare after divorce, thus continuing the demands upon their
labour started in marriage. This is now done under circumstances of increased
poverty. Women also have citizenship rights which are formally the same as those of
men. However, women are only a tiny proportion of the elected representatives and
a tiny proportion of the political agenda is around women's concerns Violence
against wives, while tolerated, is not quite as legitimate as it once was, since it can
now be used as grounds for divorce, and minimal welfare provision is available to

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 THEORISING PATRIARCHY 229

those who flee; however, few legal penalties await the vast majority of men who are
violent against women. Cultural institutions increasingly allow women's active
participation, but usually in a subordinated way.
In order to grasp the major differences in the forms of patriarchy between
different countries of the industrialised world it is further necessary to divide the
public form of patriarchy into two: one based on the market and the other on the
state as the basis of bringing women into the public sphere. At one end of the
continuum we have the countries of Eastern Europe where the state has played a
major role in this; at the other we have the U.S.A. in which the market has played an
equivalent role. In the middle we have the countries of Western Europe in which the
state, in its capacity especially as a welfare state, has been of intermediate
significance. The development of the typology from a duality to a triple is based on
the introduction of the level of the state as a new element. In Eastern Europe, and to
a lesser extent in Western Europe, the state has taken on some of the tasks which
were previously performed by women privately in the household and organised them
collectively (even if they are still largely performed by women). This is the case for
care of children, the sick and the old. (Further discussion of the different forms of
patriarchy can be found in Walby 1989).

Conclusion

Accounts of gender inequality have swung between broad explanations of

universal features of patriarchy and detailed localised descriptions of specific
instances. The desire to produce a powerful theory has been tempered by the
problems of catching the specificity of women's experiences. I have argued that the
extent of the caution about developing large scale theories of patriarchy, whether
based on a Marxist-feminist, black feminist, or post-structuralist, post-modernist
position, is misplaced. Criticisms of the concept of patriarchy' for being necessarily
ahistoric and falsely universalistic have been argued to be unfounded when the
concept is developed. The problem is restricted to those texts which theorise
patriarchy as having one causal base. When this is replaced by a model in which
there are six component structures the problem is alleviated. The six were identified
as the patriarchal mode of production, patriarchal relations in waged labour, the
patriarchal state, male violence, patriarchal sexuality, and patriarchal culture. These
together formed the system of patriarchy.
The complexity of the theorisation of patriarchy developed here, in particular the
six structures, means that it is unlikely that simple laws of its development or of a
necessary relationship with capitalism or racism could ever be produced. However, I
have suggested that we can identify certain historically specific forms of patriarchy,
dependent upon the relations between its structures. The major forms identified here
were the private and the public, with the latter differentiated into markets and state
based sub-types. In each of these forms the same six structures exist, but have
different levels of importance in the subordination of women. Further, I have
suggested that there is likely to be tension between patriarchy and capitalism over the
exploitation of women's labour (see Walby 1986 for a fuller account of this).

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230 SYLVIA WALBY

We need a set of theoretical tools to deal with the continuities as well as

historically and cross-culturally variable forms of gender inequality. A more flexible
concept of patriarchy is the means to do this.

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Biographical note : Sylvia Walby B.A. M.A. Ph.D. is Lecturer in Sociology and Director
of the Women's Studies Research Centre at the University of Lancaster. She is author of
Patriarchy at Work (1986), joint author of Localities Class and Gender (1985) and
Contemporary British Society (1988), editor of Gender Segregation at Work (1988), and
author of the forthcoming Women , Theory and Society: From Private to Public Patriarchy
(Blackwell 1989).

Address : Sylvia Walby, Ph.D., Women's Studies Research Centre, University of

Lancaster, Lancaster LAI 4YL.

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