The Place of Woman in Hegel’ Theory
Hegel places woman, whether pagan or modern, within the realm he labels the "natural Ethical community," the family. Woman is thereby explicitly excluded from the political realm, but Hegel does not thereby conclude that woman's role is insubstantial or inconsequential. On the contrary, Hegel perceives the family as intimately connected to the state. It is not the romantic haven from the heartless sphere of the state. It is not difficult to Edit my essay with the advices of experienced essay editors! Make your essay flawless! It is rather one of the "ethical roots of the state." Therefore, to evaluate the role and position of woman in Hegel's philosophy, we must look closely at the nature of the Hegelian state.

Hegel perceives the modern state as consisting of the family, civil society, and the state. The family is indispensable, for it constitutes the first ethical relation in which one learns to be a member of a community which transcends individual persons. Civil society furthers this developing sense of community by allowing for the development of concrete personality through labor and fulfillment of need as well as through an enlarging sense of interdependence. The state, representing the most developed moment, is a synthesis of the family and civil society. Participation in the universal community of the state is the result of self-conscious choice rather than custom or instinct.

Since Hegel limits women to the first moment of ethical life, the family, I will focus initially on his discussion of the family. His first detailed description of the family and its relation to the state occurs in his work The Phenomenology of Spirit, in which he examines the nature of the family in the context of the Greek polis. He directs his second discourse on the family, published fourteen years later in his Philosophy of Right, to the modern family. To understand Hegel's philosophy concerning women, we must look at his views on both of these historical periods.

Hegel perceives the classical Greek society as divided into two realms: the family and the polis. Each realm embodies a different law--the family representing divine law, the polis representing human law. Nature, according to Hegel, assigns to woman the realm of divine law, to man the realm of human law. If you seek custom written essay papers, get authentic custom paper writing service online! Human law, the law of the polis, enables man to defines himself through his identity with the community, that is, define himself as a citizen. Human law is a "known law," "the form of a reality that is conscious of itself." Divine law, unlike human law, is not consciously known. It is "an implicit, inner essence which is not exposed to the daylight of consciousness, but remains an inner feeling and the divine element that is exempt from an existence in the real world."