Hobbes’ and Cavendish’s Amazons

• In Event: Reading Texts Rhetorically

Abstract

Hobbes includes a description of the Amazons in every version of his political theory. These dangerous warrior women, who established their matriarchy through force, are used by Hobbes to argue that the rule of men is neither natural nor inevitable. The secondary literature today is divided on what this story tells us about Hobbes' views on women and political rule. For some, this description of matriarchies as natural reveals Hobbes' proto-feminist sympathies (see, for example, Lloyd 2012, Wright 2002, and, to a lesser extent, Sreedhar 2019). Others interpret it differently. Hobbes' portrayal of the Amazons as natural suggests that they represent a primitive society that must be eliminated through a patriarchal social contract (Brennan and Pateman 1979, Green 2009, Nyquist 2013).
This debate, I argue, hinges on what Hobbes means when he describes matriarchy as 'natural.' Hobbes clearly believes that matriarchies are found in the state of nature, but it is unclear which approximation of the state of nature these matriarchies represent. Hobbes tells us that there are three real-life approximations of the state of nature: the Americas, international relations, and civil war. For the proto-feminist readings, the Amazons exist in a state of nature vis-à-vis other commonwealths. Matriarchies are a perfectly legitimate form of political organization but are in the state of nature because they compete with other commonwealths. For the patriarchal readings, Hobbes treats the Amazons as being in the state of nature like the Americas—they are in a primitive, uncivilized natural state. A phase which should be overcome through a social contract that establishes patriarchy.
While there is some truth to both interpretations, I argue that the literature neglects the most unusual feature of Hobbes' Amazons. In the paper, I turn to what is omitted from Hobbes' retelling of the Amazons' story and why—namely, that the Amazon matriarchy was a product of civil war. Virtually all retellings of the Amazon tale focus on how this matriarchy was produced by wives intervening in a civil war among Scythian factions (defeating their enemies and, in turn, their husbands). While there are points at which Hobbes describes the Amazons as a form of political organization in international competition or in the Americas, he entirely omits the kind of state of nature that produced these matriarchies: civil war.
To illustrate the oddness of Hobbes' account, I compare his descriptions of the Amazons with that of his acquaintance, Margaret Cavendish. In her play, "Bell in Campo," Cavendish offers a modern retelling of the Amazon myth in the context of the English Civil War. In her play, Cavendish shows how civil wars afford women opportunities to achieve equality by defeating men through force. In doing so, Cavendish highlights the emancipatory potential of Hobbes' account of natural equality. Hobbes, obviously, did not view natural equality as a good thing. The state of nature is a state of war because of the brutal equality that exists there. For Hobbes, the solution is a kind of inequality: a Leviathan powerful enough to keep dangerous equals in awe. Cavendish uses the story of the Amazons to flip Hobbes on his head. By reminding her readers of the dangers women pose, she suggests that it is perhaps the dangerous equals who ought to keep the Leviathan in awe.

Author

• Mary Jo MacDonald, University of Toronto