I’ve been thinking about how necessary the division between sexes is for Hegel and I think I have a novel way of avoiding any logical fallout from his potentially sexist remarks. By logical fallout I mean any invalidity to his further argument that comes from falsely assuming that men and women have different characteristics; that men are like animals and women are like plants, etc (I.E. passage 165). Here is my argument:

Assume for sake of argument that sexist critique of Hegel holds. What does this entail? Well, either there are different objective facts about differences between men and women listed (i.e. he characterized men and women wrong, but there is some objective characterization of men and women) or that their are no objective facts about differences between men and women listed (i.e. men and women can be like animals or plants, though presumably the traits are exclusive). The first case seem to be subject to the same sexist critique that presumably problematizes Hegel, so I’ll concentrate on the second case.(1)

If men and women can both realize plant and animal traits, and the traits are exclusive, then there will be a group of men and women with mixed traits. By this I mean that some men will be like plants, some women like animals, and perhaps some men/women will be like plants in some aspects and animals in others.

Now, Hegel’s concept of marriage seems to me to depend on a union of two individual’s unlike traits, which results in a family. (2) Marriage needs a union of unlike traits because, as Catherine wrote, “...if men and women were not essentially different, then their union would not, presumably, result in supersession (and hence new, 'better,' individuality)”. Here, if we replace the necessity of men and women being essentially different in general with the necessity of the individuals getting married being essentially different, I think we can preserve Hegel’s account of marriage. In other words, all that is required for marriage is that the individuals involved in the marriage have the right balance of animal and plant traits; if a man who is plant-like marries a woman who is animal-like, a marriage results. I think under Hegel’s account these traits will also necessitate a certain role in the family-persons with plant traits shouldn’t be the head of a government, but I think the role necessitated in the family is necessitated by having the trait rather than being a man or a woman. Thus, if there is the correct balance of traits in a marriage and the individuals with the traits play their proper roles, Hegel’s account seems to hold.

Furthermore, if this is added to Hegel’s account, then he will be able to explain why some marriages are better than others; if the two individuals being married don’t have the proper balance of plant and animal traits, then the supperession of individualities is imperfect and the resulting individuality is a defective version of the proper suppersession. This further explains why some roles are unfulfilled in the family-if neither individual has animal traits, then the governing role is imperfect. I’m unsure here if Hegel would say that one marriage is better than another here, or simply that no marriage results unless the proper balance occurs in the union.

Anyways, for me this seems prima facie to work. Are there any problems with this move that I am missing?

Thanks for your time,
Michael Vossen

Notes:

1. The reason the first case problematizes Hegel and the second does not is probably because all sets of men/women differences say “For all subjects x and some trait Y, there are no women(x) such that Y(x)” -I.e. There are no women who can philosophize, etc- and we can always find a person t such that women(t) and Y(t)-Kellyn is a women and Kellyn philosophizes. The second case simply denies that a set of differences of this kind exists, so it avoids the problem. Also, I think these traits and differences need to be somehow different than or not entailed by physical traits for my argument to work; I do not deny that women have different physical traits than men.

2. This seems very similar to the concept of love presented in Plato’s Symposium

3. This argument seems to be a version of Matthew’s weak revision.