Psychoanalytic Roots of Patriarchy

This book offers an explanation of the development of human social order in terms of psychoanalytic theory. An original argument in social theory, it takes on patriarchy and attempts to uncover its inner dynamics and, at the same time, tries to redirect psychoanalytic social theory in a more collective direction. In so doing, it offers a critique of the subordination of women by men within the bounds of a scholarly treatment of society that remains committed to existing social and pyschological models without sacrificing one for the other. Professor Smith argues that social order is primarily the product of neurosis, and that the material conditions of life and human rationality are secondary. According to Professor Smith, western culture's male-dominated social order is the product of repression and illusion, central concepts in psychoanalytic theory, and not the result of rational thought. It is continually legitimized in terms of reasons related to human material needs rather than the psychological needs which actually drive it. As a result, legal and political theory and institutions take on a mythic dimension and function, divorced from the reality in which we live.
This book began as Professor Smith's quest to make sense our of the origins, history, and structure of the law, a journey which led him to relevant literature in philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, literature, mythology, political and social thought, much of which he summarizes here.