The Family Symbol Analysis

Mill frames the family as both a small-scale representation of society and the key site of women’s oppression. This is not to say that every individual family is either of these things, but rather that the family as a social institution—a unit that is structured according to social norms—symbolizes the power relations of society at large, including gender inequality. Mill draws parallel between how social dynamics operate in the family and how they do in society, most crucially when he claims that there is a parallel between political despotism (totalitarian or tyrannical authority) and despotism within the family.

Ultimately, Mill ends up claiming that the family is not just a parallel of the political problems that exist in society at large, but the major cause of these problems. He believes that men learn how to exercise excessive power through wielding too much control over their wives, and that children internalize the existence of unjust hierarchies through watching the dynamic between their parents. In this way, the family structure symbolizes the social hierarchies that reinforce inequality in wider society. For this reason, Mill argues that the family needs to be redesigned in order to promote the “virtues of freedom.” Men and women should share decision-making equally and women should be allowed to participate in the public sphere rather than being confined to their roles as wives and mothers. If such changes were to take place within the family, Mill argues, society as a whole would be transformed for the better.