 In this relevant sense, women are naturally equal to men. They are equally naturally free, meaning that their consent is required before they will be under the authority of anyone else. In this, Hobbes’s claims stand in stark contrast to many prevailing views of the time, according to which women were born inferior to and subordinate to men. Sir Robert Filmer, who later served as the target of John Locke’s First Treatise of Government, is a well-known proponent of this view, which he calls patriarchalism. Explicitly rejecting the patriarchalist view as well as Salic law, Hobbes maintains that women can be sovereigns; authority for him is “neither male nor female”. He also argues for natural maternal right: in the state of nature, dominion over children naturally belongs to the mother. He adduced the example of the Amazon warrior women as evidence.