Chapter VII

God created humans with the capacity and inclination to live in society, providing them with understanding and language to form and maintain social bonds.

The first societies are familial: conjugal (man-wife), parental (parents-children), and servile (master-servant), arising naturally from human needs and relationships.

These familial societies, though they may coexist in one household, are fundamentally different from political society in their ends, ties, and bounds.

Conjugal society is a voluntary compact between man and woman aimed chiefly at procreation, but carrying mutual support and shared interests necessary for offspring.

The conjugal union must last as long as children need nourishment and support, since parents bear responsibility for their young until independence.

Locke observes that different animal species maintain conjugal bonds only as long as offspring require parental care, varying by species and food sources.

Humans require longer conjugal unions because children have extended dependency periods overlapping with new pregnancies, and humans have foresight to accumulate property for family security.

Locke raises the question whether conjugal compacts, once offspring and inheritance are secured, should not be terminable by consent or time like other voluntary agreements.

Though a husband holds authority in matters of common property and interest due to his strength, this authority does not grant power over his wife's life or absolute sovereignty.

Civil government supports marriage's essential ends (procreation and mutual aid) without requiring absolute spousal authority, which is not necessary to marriage.

Locke notes he has previously established the distinct rights and powers in parent-child relations and will not repeat that discussion here.

A freeman voluntarily becomes a servant by contracting labor in exchange for wages; slaves, by contrast, are captives from just war subjected to absolute dominion.

Since slaves have forfeited their lives and liberties and possess no property, they cannot be part of civil society, whose chief end is property preservation.

Though a household may resemble a small commonwealth in order and number, it differs fundamentally in constitution, power, and end from true political society.

A paterfamilias lacks legislative power of life and death over free family members and thus cannot have absolute power over the whole family.

Man is born with natural freedom and rights equal to all others: to preserve his life, liberty, and estate, and to judge and punish law violations.

Political society exists only where members resign their natural executive power to the community, which then serves as impartial judge according to established laws.

Those united in one body with common established law and impartial judicature to decide controversies and punish offenders are in civil society; those lacking this are in the state of nature.

The commonwealth gains power to legislate punishments and wage war against external threats, all to preserve property of its members.

Members surrender their private judgment in punishment to the legislative but thereby obligate themselves to execute commonwealth judgments when called upon.

Political society forms wherever people unite to surrender executive power to the public, creating a supreme government with impartial judges to settle disputes.

Absolute monarchy contradicts civil society's fundamental purpose: to provide an impartial authority to appeal to, since an absolute prince himself has no such appeal.

An absolute monarch concentrating all legislative and executive power has no judge or appeal available, placing him and his subjects in the state of nature.

Under absolute rule, subjects lose not only the appeal mechanism but the liberty itself to judge or defend their rights, rendering them degraded and exposed.

History shows that absolute power does not purify rulers; men who would be injurious are merely empowered to do greater harm on thrones.

Though absolute monarchies provide appeals between subjects, they offer no appeal against the ruler himself, making internal security meaningless.

A ruler's enforcement of law between subjects resembles a master's care for animals he owns only for profit, not charity.

The claim that men would quit the state of nature only to surrender freedom to one man while others retain constraints is absurd—equivalent to fearing foxes but accepting lions.

When people perceive themselves outside civil society's protections relative to an unaccountable ruler, they seek to establish the security civil society was designed to provide.

Though good men may initially receive deference to rule, when successors prove unworthy, people relocate legislative power to collective bodies to ensure equal subjection to law.

In true civil society, no individual can claim exemption from established laws; anyone who does is not part of civil society but remains in the state of nature.