The Rise of Sovereignty and the Logic of Congruence

Abstract

This chapter locates the origins of the logic of congruence in modern thought. This logic turns out not to be historically liberal in origin but rather arose out of the arguments for absolute sovereignty advanced by Jean Bodin and his followers. Bodin was the first modern thinker to model the power of fathers on that of absolute monarchs and to claim that fathers wield absolute authority over their children. This model goes so far as to demand the reinstatement of the long-discarded Roman right of life and death over children. For Bodin, the family became a vehicle through which his novel conception of absolute power could be demonstrated and legitimated. Total submission under absolutist fathers was necessary to correctly educate and accustom children to their political duties as subjects of absolute sovereigns.