Social 1 / Hobbes's Leviathan

1. Most people married late, many years after reaching adulthood and beginning work. Both sexes married at an average age of twenty-seven or later. A large portion of men and women never married at all. People married when they were economically secure. Peasant sons often had to wait for the father to die before they could inherit the land. To prevent more landless paupers, more abandoned children, and more money for welfare, local laws and community orders were established. This maintained a balance between the number of people and economic resources.

2. Many young people worked within their families until they could start their own households. Boys plowed and wove, and girls spun and tended cows. Others left town temporarily for work. Some boys became apprentices and spent seven to fourteen years learning their trades. In most trades, boys worked hard and received little, unless they were admitted to a guild where they could be-come prosperous. Boys drifted from tough jobs and unemployment was constantly a threat. Girls also did apprentices, but their opportunities were limited. Girls were often employed in houses as servants. Girls worked hard, but received little, and sometimes their wages were paid directly to their parents. Servant girls had to clean, shop, cook, and care for the baby. There were no labor laws, and the girls were exploited. Girls were manipulated by their mistresses. Often times, ser-vant girls were seduced or sexually attacked by their master or his sons or friends. If the girl be-came pregnant, she was thrown out and had to resort to prostitution or thievery.

3. There rarely was one bastard child out of twenty baptized children. In some French parishes, there were less than 1% bastards. However, premarital sex was very common and 33% of all children were conceived before the parents were married. Many of those were born within three months of the marriage. Many couples who had conceived their children were already going steady before they became intimate and pregnancy simply hastened the marriage date. Common action was used by villages to prevent poor, unwed mothers from having illegitimate children, which ultimately would doom their economic, social, and moral stability. Angry parents, anxious village elders, indignant priests, and authoritative landlords all pressured young people to not waver in marriages to have illegitimate children. Thus, premarital sex was not casual and was only done when couples were thinking about marriage. Family institutions and social pressures crushed the individuality of couples. The community acted, sometimes violently, to ensure couples followed the rules and did not endanger the community’s image. People in peasant communities loudly berated those in affairs. Men would gang up and punish the offender, usually by embarrassing him. Once a couple married, they had several children and birth control was not effective at that time. Many men, especially the French, used coitus interruptus to limit their families. Certain sectors of the urban population used the “sheath,” but mostly to prevent venereal diseases and not pregnancy. Prostitutes used them to not become pregnant.

4. The number of illegitimate births soared between 1750 to 1850 in the illegitimacy explosion. In Frankfurt, Germany, illegitimate births rose from around 2% in the early 1700s to around 25% around 1850. In Bordeaux, France, 36% of all babies were born out of wedlock by 1840. Small towns and villages eventually rose to 10% to 20% from 1% to 3% from 1750 to 1850. Fewer young women were having premarital sex and fewer young men were marrying the women they got pregnant. This was caused by two main causes. Firstly, the growth of the cottage industry created new opportunities not tied to the land. Cottages tended to occur in areas where the soil was poor and divided into small, inadequate holdings. Because young people did not have to wait to inherit a farm in order to get married and have children, population grew rapidly. After 1750, courtship became more extensive and freer as cottage industry grew. Older generations were often critical of the youth, though that did not deter them. Secondly, the needs of a growing population sent many young villagers to urban areas in search of temporary or permanent jobs. Mobility encour-aged new sexual and marital relationships, which were less subject to village tradition and re-sulted in more illegitimate births. Most young women in urban areas worked mostly as servants or textile workers and were forced to look to marriage and family life as an escape from hard work. Promises of marriage led naturally to sex, which was widely viewed as a part to courtship. The male courters were often sincere in their proposals, but since their lives were insecure, many hesitated to take the heavy economic burdens of a wife and children. Because of this, it was now very hard to convert pregnancy into marriage and often times the intended marriage did not take place. The romantic marriage of young, urban couples were being harmed by low wages, inequality, and changing economic and social conditions. Old patterns of marriage and family were breaking down among the common people.

5. Breast-feeding decreases the likelihood of pregnancy for the average women by delaying the re-sumption of ovulation. Women limited their fertility and spaced their children from two to three years apart. During nursing, the infant receives precious immunity-producing substances with its mother’s milk and was more likely to survive then when it was given any artificial food. In Russia, children were given a sweetened and germ-ridden rag to suck on for its first subsistence; half the babies did not survive the first year. Unlike the laboring poor, the women of the aristocracy and the upper-middle class hardly ever nursed their children. They felt that breastfeeding was crude, common, and undignified and instead hired a wet nurse to suckle her child. The urban mother al-so hired a wet nurse so that they could work full-time. Wet-nursing was a very widespread busi-ness in the 1700s. Wet-nurses often worked two to three years in the task. The nurses were treated badly and were blamed for the baby’s faults.

6. In ancient times, it was not uncommon to allow babies, especially girls, to die when it was too much of a burden. However, the early medieval church denounced infanticide as pagan and a capital offense. However, parents still killed their children by overlaying, or rolling over and suffocating them while “drunk.” In Austria in 1784, authorities made it illegal for parents to take children under five into bed with them. Severe poverty and increasing illegitimacy lowered the social status of the poor. If young girls could not afford for their children, she could bundle up her baby and leave it on the doorstep of the church if she could not get an abortion or get a killing nurse. Both England and France established foundling hospitals. Throughout Europe in the 1700s, foundling homes emerged as a favorite charity of the rich and powerful. However, 50% to 90% of the babies normally died within a year. In all classes, children were often of minor concern to their parents and to society during the 1700s. The high number of death among children influenced these feelings, and doctors and clergymen urged parents not to become too emotionally involved with their children. Medical buildings were hardly interested in the care of children. The best hope for children was to be treated by women healers and midwives. When parents and other adults did turn toward children, it was often to discipline and control them. In the mid-1700s, this attitude changed because of critics like Rousseau who, in his treatise Emile, called for greater love, tenderness, and understanding toward children. These critics supported foundling homes to discourage infanticide, urged wealthy women to nurse their own babies, and ridiculed the process of swaddling. Because of this, small children were dressed in simpler, more comfortable clothing that allowed greater movement. Most parents were delighted in the love and intimacy of their children and found pleasure raised them. These changes came from the growing humanitarianism and cautious optimism that followed the Enlightenment.

7. In the 1500s, the aristocracy and the rich had built special colleges that were often run by Jesuits. Elementary schools for the children of common people came during the 1600s. Unlike medieval schools, the elementary schools specialized in boys and girls from seven to twelve, where they were taught basic literacy and religion. Religious reformers believed that reading made teaching more effective. Because of this, literacy was higher in border areas where influences and religions from outside countries came in. Popular education was accelerated in the 1700s, but many common people did not receive any formal kind. Prussia was the leader of universal education because its leaders believed every person should be able to read and study the Bible to gain personal salvation and to beneficially serve the state. As early as 1717, Prussia made primary education mandatory and some neighboring German states followed soon after. From the mid-1600s, Scotland believed that the study of the Scriptures was important and established a network of parish schools from all classes. The Church of England and other factions established charity schools to instruct the poor, and in 1682, France began setting up Christian schools to teach catechism, prayers, reading, and writing. In 1774, Maria Theresa established a system of elementary education that required education and a school in every community. As a result of state-sponsored education, basic literary grew greatly between 1600 and 1800. In 1600, only one male in six was considered literate in France and Scotland with one-fourth in England. However, by 1800, about nine out of ten Scottish males, two-thirds French, and more than 50% of English were literate. Women were following men in literacy, though they were behind men in most countries. The growth in literacy allowed for a growth in reading, and many people read to figure out about the natural world. Unlike the philosophes of the Enlightenment, the peasants and workers could not afford or understand the books of the elite. The Bible was the main book, especially in Protestant countries, though a large portion of the reading was in chapbooks that dealt with Bible stories, prayers, devotions, and the lives of saints and high Christians. These books gave the reader moral teachings and confidence that God helped in daily living. Entertaining, funny stories were second in popular literature as fairy tales, medieval romances, fictionalized history, and fantastic adventures were popular. The popularity of these stories suggests a desire to escape the harsh everyday reality and to teach lessons. Other literature was about rural crafts, household repairs, useful plants, and similar matters. Almanacs that contained secular, religious, and astrological events with agricultural schedules, strange information, and jokes were popular.


1. Thomas Hobbes believes that people aren’t naturally social beings and that they are only moved by their own self-interests. He believes in a “natural religion,” one where man is naturally unmor-al and that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate persons. He also believed that only matter exists and that everything that happens can be predicted by exact, scientific laws. Everything was a “body,” and each body is governed by laws of motion.

2. Hobbes says that groups of people create “bodies,” by societies, communities, and governments that are designed to protect themselves from another, and that these bodies are best government by a king or absolute ruler. Because individuals are naturally selfish, a government that is benevolent but all-powerful is the best, most just form of government. Only through the monarch can the rights and growth of the state be defended. The four parts of Leviathan are the nature of man, of a Commonwealth, of a Christian Commonwealth, and then the Kingdom of Darkness.

3. Hobbes’s definition of experience is all of your memories that form the foundation of an individu-al’s thoughts and insight that in turn govern man’s mental discourse and then verbal discourse. Verbal discourse is man’s most noble invention because they are now rational beings who have invented speech. Knowledge comes from interactive speech known as discussion, which is man’s power. Power is what allows a man to achieve a higher good. Power is determined by how much good you can do.

4. Divisions in society come from differing levels of ethical matters and the resulting intellectual equality and moral inequality. These differences lead to civil war. Sovereigns protect against this warring atmosphere. In republics, where there is no supreme power, constant war is the norm and there is a constant threat of war. Fear, selfishness, competitiveness, and hatred are rampant.

5. The security of a Commonwealth comes from a great body of individual citizens since a single person or a small group is weak. Sovereignty gives life to the whole body, the wealth of its member is its strength, and the safety of the citizens is its business. A Commonwealth is established by society giving up all its strength and power to one governing body in return for peace and common defense and other rights and faculties. Its powers are absolute and cannot be accused of injustice. The Sovereign is the Supreme Judge, the leader in war and peace, the rewarder and punisher, and establishes the proper place of men in society.

6. A Commonwealth’s best chance for success is a monarchy where a king’s wealth, power, and glory all reflect the wealth, power, and glory of the public. In a monarchy, private interests are the same as public and every citizen is obliged to obey the doctrines of the monarch. If the sovereign is not longer able to protect the citizen, then the citizens are not required to obey. The Right of Nature, self-protection, cannot be given up, even to a sovereign. Thus, a citizen’s obligation to obey will never require him to die.

7. In a Christian Commonwealth, a citizen subjects himself to the word of the prophets and the scriptures outline the principles which should be exercised for the spiritual salvation of all. A problem with them is who to obey when there is a conflict between the rules of God and men. Obedience to the law of God and to civil law are all that are needed to be accepted into the Kingdom of God, and the sovereign will not persecute his Christian subjects if he knows they are subject to his will, making a Christian Commonwealth the best form of rule. Christian monarchs are benevolence and merciful, but will defend and assist his citizens.

8. The four causes of spiritual darkness are ignorance of the Scriptures, acceptance of heathen de-mons and idols, Greek philosophy, and the mingling of heathen tenets with uncertain traditions.