Chapter 3: Are Daughters Allowed to Inherit
an Empire?
Following on from my previous chapter,
I shall further analyse the topic of inheriting an empire, which can be found in
section 37 of Spinoza’s TP chapter 6. Although it concerns that same section 37
as I discussed in chapter 2, I have chosen to analyse its last sentence in a
separate chapter to highlight its unique tensions which stand apart from, while
relating to, the rest of the section and Spinoza’s philosophy. This is because,
I argue, it raises different issues from the rest of section 37 for two main
reasons which arise from discrepancies between the Latin text and possible
English versions of it. One main tension highlights how the last sentence is
translated and interpreted to show that it impacts more on its meaning and has wider
implications for Spinoza’s political concepts and views on women than the rest
of section 37. A second main, overall tension is that the last sentence is
problematic on certain translations, in that it need not logically follow on
from the previous sentence and the section as a whole. I shall endeavour to
demonstrate how, on my reading of this section, Spinoza remains consistent as
he works his way through his mathematically structured logical argument.
Spinoza’s TP is known to be a complex text to
translate and understand and therefore vulnerable to disagreement[i].
Indeed, on the face of it, this sentence poses a potential hiccup for my
feminist interpretation of Spinoza. Nonetheless, since this sentence has
implications for Spinoza’s stance on gender roles and women, in this chapter, I
continue the feminist aspect of my interpretation of Spinoza. My focus on this
sentence is closely linked to my previous two chapters which attempt a positive
feminist appreciation of Spinoza. Through the two overall reasons stated above,
I attempt to provide justification and textual evidence to support why I
continue with a positive feminist reading of Spinoza.
The last sentence in section 37,
chapter 6 of the TP states:
“Nam filias in hereditatem
imperii venire, nulla ratione concedendum”[ii]
One way of translating this is, for instance, along the lines of
Elwes’s translation:
“For that daughters should be
admitted to the inheritance of a dominion is in no wise to be allowed.”[iii]
Elwes’s translation gives us a
reading of Spinoza’s TP which I think is open to the interpretation that
Spinoza is claiming that daughters should never be allowed to inherit a
dominion, so implying women cannot ascend the throne to become queens in their
own right. Elwes is not alone in translating the sentence in this way. Over a
hundred years later, at the beginning of the 21st century, Shirley
translates it much the same way, except more emphatically against daughters’
inheritance:
“For it should in no way be
permitted that daughters should inherit the throne.”[iv]
However, I shall begin to resolve
the tensions inherent within the meaning of this sentence by questioning these
possible readings and interpretations of this passage. This is because it does
not reflect the Latin grammar and words used by Spinoza which cover a range of
possible meanings, as can be seen in my interlineal translation chart below:
filias
|
in
|
hereditatem
|
imperii
|
daughters
(accusative plural feminine noun)
|
(+ ablative)
in, in accordance with,
regard to,
the case of
(+ accusative)
about, according to, for, to
|
inheritance, possession hereditary succession
generation heirship
(accusative
singular
feminine noun) |
The state,
the empire,
rule,
supreme power,
command, authority
(genitive
singular
neuter noun) |
Venire
|
nulla
|
ratione
|
concedendum.
|
(from
veneo, venire;
present infinitive active) go for sale, be sold
(as slave), be disposed of for (dishonourable/
venal) financial gain
or
(from venio, venire; present infinitive active) come
|
no, none, not any
(possibly ablative)
|
account, reckoning, plan, prudence, method,
reasoning, rule, regard
(possibly ablative)
|
(from
concedo, concedere, concessi, concessus)
relinquish, give up, concede, submit, allow,
grant, permit,
condone, suffer, concede
(singular accusative gerund or gerundive)
|
To give a sense of the literal
meaning and structure of the Latin, I suggest Spinoza’s sentence amounts to the
claim that:
For/since/because daughters (as
far as daughters are concerned / when it comes to daughters) giving up/relinquishing
(their) inheritance of the empire to sell for (financial) gain (is in) no way
prudent.
I shall be working with the
equivalent English words for imperii listed in the interlineal chart above,
especially empire and state, rather than the words dominion, as used by Elwes,
or throne, as used by Shirley so as not to stretch the strict meaning of the
Latin vocabulary. I shall use the word empire most often because it addresses
the complex yet common situation in the history of politics of how to rule several territories
at once without either being absent or dividing the kingdom between more than
one ruler.
Smoothing this out so it is
easier to read, gives us the following claim:
Because it is in no way prudent
that daughters should be giving up their inheritance of the empire to sell it
for (financial) gain.
What are the reasons and
justifications for reading this sentence in this way?
A key issue with understanding
the layers of philosophical meaning in this sentence, I claim, revolves around
how one reads two Latin words, namely, concedendum and venire.
There are many potential meanings
for the word concedendum and which word is selected impacts greatly on one’s
understanding of Spinoza’s argument and justification. Elwes chose the meaning
of whether something should be allowed while Shirley chose the word permitted.
However, I suggest these are not the most obvious word choices here and it
raises both grammatical and interpretative tensions which I attempt to resolve.
The main meaning and usage of the word concedendum in the context of a sentence
like this is to relinquish, give up, concede. An example of this within a
classical philosophical text is Cicero’s De Natura Deorum II where “concedimus
etiam” is translated as “we concede”[v].
Cicero was a Roman statesman and philosopher and, therefore, an apt past figure
for Spinoza to refer to in the Ethics and especially the TP[vi]
where he is attempting to approach political philosophy in the style of an
orator and statesman. Drawing on this for the context of Spinoza’s TP, I
suggest it means Spinoza is maintaining that it is imprudent to concede or
grant that women’s inheritance of an empire be sold off as a dowry. So I think
one needs stronger reasons for choosing the sense of allowing or permitting as
it is a lesser-used meaning of the word. Perhaps Elwes preferred reading it as allowed in order to keep the same usage as he has done earlier in the same passage,
where the word appears in exactly the same way, albeit in the context of a
different sentence. Shirley equally repeats his chosen word of permitted in
this section, possibly for the same reason.
This leaves the question, should
concedendum be translated the same way both times? For consistency, one could
argue that one should use the same word twice to highlight that the Latin word
remains the same. I suggest concedendum should be translated as conceding
rather than allowing/permitting. This is because although it does not change
the argument in the first instance it is used, it does vitally change the
meaning in its second instance. Whether one reads Spinoza as saying it should
not be allowed that an empire is divided up or whether one reads him as
claiming one should not concede or grant that an empire is divided, both
readings amount to the same claim. However, whether one reads Spinoza as
arguing against women’s right to inherit an empire, or whether one reads him as
arguing for women retaining their right not to have their inheritance sold off
within a dowry on marrying, makes a huge conceptual and feminist difference to
one’s understanding of Spinoza’s political philosophy. I would favour
translating concedendum as conceding/granting/relinquishing both times it
occurs in section 37 on the grounds that it provides consistency and is in
keeping with the classical philosophical usage of Latin so reflecting which
philosophical conclusions one should accept or reject. The word allowed does
not provide an especially smooth reading of the sentence so I am unconvinced it
helps the flow and sense of the section. There is also not a big enough shift
in the content or context between the two usages to justify changing the meaning.
Having settled on this translation, I maintain that it is informative to look
at the tenses, cases and word order for further clues about what Spinoza was
trying to argue.
Furthermore, allowed and
permitted do not reflect the grammar behind the word concedendum, which could
be a gerund or gerundive. This impacts on how one reads the last sentence in
section 37 in two key ways.
One, I think a more literal
reflection of concedendum is by ending its equivalent English word with –ing
because it is either a gerund or a gerundive. If it is a gerund, it has to be
in the singular because there is no plural. This means that it would not show
how many people it referred to or take the form of ‘to be –ed’. This makes concedendum
the equivalent of conceding, relinquishing. If it is a gerundive, then, more precisely,
I think it is a gerundive phrase, not a gerundive passive periphrastic. This, I
argue, is a major problem for Elwes’s and Shirley’s reading of this sentence in
Spinoza. I suspect Elwes and Shirley converted the Latin into English by
treating concedendum as a gerundive passive periphrastic, which is a specific
verb construction. This would explain why they used the form ‘be –ed’ and try to
convey obligation and necessity with it, giving one the normative sense that it
is necessary to disallow women from inheriting an empire and implying there is
some obligation to ensure this does not happen. However, if it were a gerundive
passive periphrastic then it would take the form of a gerundive accompanied by
the relevant form of sum. It would also be linked with a nominative in the
sentence. Thus, I struggle to see that concedendum is this type of verb
construction because it does not appear in the text either alongside a form of
sum or a nominative. This leaves the option of the gerundive being a gerundive
phrase but this is not translated into English as ‘be –ed’ but rather –ing.
Hence, I suggest it should be translated as conceding, relinquishing because it
would be the correct ending, irrespective of whether one understands it as a
gerund or gerundive phrase. Furthermore, the importance of it not being a
gerundive passive periphrastic is that, unlike other passive verbs, it does not
take the ablative case. Thus, although it may seem correct to pair concedendum
with nulla ratione because they are possibly ablatives and seem to be in the
same sub-clause as concedendum because they are also after the comma, this
cannot be correct for a gerundive passive periphrastic. In other words, if
concedendum were a gerundive passive periphrasic, it would need a dative (not an
ablative) which does not appear anywhere in this sentence, making it an
unlikely verb form. Therefore, I refute the need to understand Spinoza as
claiming women’s inheritance of an empire should not be allowed.
Two, if one wishes to find a noun
with which concedendum may be agreeing, then given it is in the accusative
singular, it may match with a fellow accusative singular, in this case
inheritance (hereditatem). This gives the reading of not conceding an argument
about inheritance or not relinquishing inheritance. Who should not be
relinquishing this? We should not concede that daughters (also in the accusative
case, but this time in the plural) relinquish their inheritance. Then one asks,
of what? The empire, because it is in the genitive.
The second key word here in this
sentence, is venire. This word is important because it could potentially be
derived from either veneo or venio which mean very different things and is
related to what concedendum refers to. Shirley completely ignores venire in his
English translation, however, Elwes seems to take venire to be derived from
venio (to come) and slots this into the meaning of the sentence by giving it
the function of turning it into the phrase to come/be admitted into
inheritance. In this way, Elwes has Spinoza giving the normative argument that
what should not be allowed is women inheriting an empire. However, I question
that venire in this sentence derives from venio and I think the sense of to
come or be admitted in the Latin is different from English usage. In Latin,
venio seems to me to depict physical motion of some sort so that one comes into
or comes across a city rather than a situation such as inheritance. In Latin,
the verb or noun form for inheritance is, I suggest, enough in itself to
express coming into inheritance, it does not require any extra verbs with it,
such as venio.
Therefore, I suggest veneo (to
sell) better suits the meaning of the sentence as well as the whole of section
37. In the previous sentence, Spinoza is arguing against dividing an empire by
selling it to a groom as a dowry. This concept of dividing an empire through a
dowry can then carry through to the next sentence if venire derives from veneo.
This makes sense because Spinoza starts the last sentence with the word nam, showing
that he is giving a reason which explains and justifies his previous statement
about indivisibility and dowries. This makes a big difference when interpreting
Spinoza’s claims, both for feminism and political philosophy. The discrepancy
in meaning is between whether Spinoza is disallowing women to come into
inheritance of an empire or whether he is arguing that it is imprudent to
concede that women’s inheritance should be sold off for (possibly dishonourable)
financial gain.
Hence, my feminist interpretation
of Spinoza concludes that he is arguing for daughters not relinquishing their
right to inherit an empire in its entirety, given that an empire or state should
be indivisible. Upholding this right for women to be eligible for inheriting
assets, including an empire, is in line with feminist thought on equality and so
provides a positive reading of Spinoza. Moreover, I maintain that my positive
feminist reading of Spinoza’s view of women’s right to inheritance is further
supported by contextual evidence from his life. Although Spinoza won the legal
right to his portion of his father’s inheritance, despite his sister Rebekah’s
attempt to deprive him of it, he nonetheless subsequently relinquished his
portion to her[vii].
This shows Spinoza did not take advantage of his male privilege and power over
his less privileged sister who, as a woman, had a disadvantaged position in
society. Spinoza’s attitude towards her shows him to be not only a loving
brother but also a man who, like the philosopher J S Mill two centuries later,
thinks women should be treated equally and fairly. By relinquishing his portion
to her, he redressed the societal and economic inequalities and imbalances
between women and men. He was a mensch
(a Jewish/Yiddish ethical concept for a person of excellent character who possesses
integrity and honour).
Having established my alternative
reading of section 37, I will now show how it resolves the second main tension
caused by other readings of Spinoza. This second tension poses the
interpretative challenge of how to demonstrate that Spinoza was not
contradicting himself at the end of the section. As I mentioned at the
beginning of this chapter, this is important because the manner in which the
last sentence is translated and interpreted has wide ranging consequences for
Spinoza’s political concepts and views on women.
As section 37 reads on the Elwes
and Shirley translations, there is a lack of fit between the end of the first
sentence (starting si) and the second (starting with nam). This gives rise to
an interpretative tension because it produces a logical contradiction. If one
accepts their reading of the second sentence as claiming daughters must not
inherit an empire, then it adds nothing to enlighten or explain why Spinoza has
just asserted that men should not buy their way into an empire through
receiving a dowry. It also seems to overlook the fact that dowries were
traditionally assets still belonging to the bride’s parents which were given by
the bride’s parents, to the groom. Thus, the daughter in question has not
usually received her inheritance prior to her wedding day. Therefore, it would be a
moot point whether she was allowed to inherit the empire from her parents
because her inheritance was not a prerequisite for a dowry. Her parents were
usually still alive when she married, especially since she would often be
very young herself given the average age women entered into a traditional
marriage with a dowry in the era to which Spinoza is referring. So given the empire
would belong to her parents and would be an asset she may or may not receive as
part of her inheritance upon their death, the daughter’s right to inherit does
not directly impact on the dowry issue. If she were not allowed to inherit the
empire, this would not stop her parents from including it in her dowry. The
empire would effectively circumvent her by transferring directly from her
parents to her husband. Hence, it would be illogical to argue from the claim
that empires should not be in daughters’ dowries to the claim daughters should
not inherit an empire. Logically speaking, a daughter not being allowed to
inherit an empire does not in itself stop her groom/husband from obtaining it
in her stead.
This leaves the question of how to
reveal the logical connection between the two assertions so the latter can act
as a reason for the former.
The last sentence of this section
begins with the word nam which is used for explaining, confirming, giving
examples and reasons. It is also used at the beginning of a sentence which
functions as a supporting claim for prior assertions about a subject matter
which should be apparent enough that no further premises are needed. This, I
argue, indicates a logical connection between the first sentence (beginning
with si) and the second (last) sentence (beginning with nam). Thus, I think the
second sentence should be seen as clarifying, not contradicting his last
assertion in the first sentence about not selling off an empire within a dowry.
The logical relation between the two sentences can be seen more clearly if they
are put into a question and answer format. If one reframes the end of the first
sentence as the question: why shouldn’t one include an empire as an asset
within a dowry? Then the second sentence provides the answer: because it is
obviously unwise/imprudent to do so. This shows the explanatory link between
the two assertions.
[i] Benedictus de Spinoza et al., Political
Treatise (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub, 2000), vi.
[ii] Benedict de Spinoza, Opera: DE
INTELLECTUS EMENDATIONE, TRACTATUS POLITICUS, EPISTOLAE., ed. C.H. Bruder,
EDITI ONIBUS PRINCIPIBUS DENUO EDIDIT, EDITIO STEREOTYPA, (google e-book), vol.
II (Leipzig, Germany: TYPIS ET SUMTIBUS BERNH. TAUCHNITZ JUN., 1844), 83,
https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadzEPDWXpqdc1w64BhFzajGArDBTQxm7-OplWX-YAvgSP9r0aWjRuX_tWKyc91-v3Gs_dl8Bj6OsIx-MXggSVv8YstyN_hv_92hGuIgl7pjaissVrP4yATRaHCCUioseMVU8P140b-vRAVXK3X2671uEoDyNHgJNglQzeqMHaWArZG409KntocN2v_33hMNHHIie-SfXal-O7pNaaJTNnYo5Vdp_tP0ZStSFL2ajcir8s3q1LHnTpfqUrXkIlOd7woTP-bA2LMP2J729nBFPsQz-WHMOw.
[iii] Benedict de Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS
of BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, trans. R. H. M. Elwes, REVISED EDITION. London, UK,
vol. I, BOHN’S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. SPINOZA’S WORKS. (London: york street,
covent garden: GEORGE BELL & SONS, 1891), 326,
http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/1710/1321.01_Bk.pdf.
[iv] Spinoza et al., Political Treatise,
74.
[v] M. T. Cicero, De Natura Deorum;
Academica, ed. E. H. Warmington, trans. Harris Rackham, First, vol. 19,
Loeb Classical Library (London, UK: Heinemann, 1933), 198–99,
https://archive.org/details/denaturadeorumac00ciceuoft/page/n7.
[vi] Spinoza, THE CHIEF WORKS of BENEDICT
DE SPINOZA, I:379.
[vii] Roger Scruton, Spinoza, 1st
edition (1. Nov. 1986), Past Masters Series (Oxford Paperbacks, Oxford
University Press, 1986), 7.
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