 In seeming contrast to this egalitarian foundation, Hobbes spoke of the commonwealth in patriarchal language. In the move from the state of nature to civil society, families are described as “fathers”, “servants”, and “children”, seemingly obliterating mothers from the picture entirely. Hobbes justifies this way of talking by saying that it is fathers not mothers who have founded societies. As true as that is, it is easy to see how there is a lively debate between those who emphasize the potentially feminist or egalitarian aspects of Hobbes’s thought and those who emphasize his ultimate exclusion of women. Such debates raise the question: To what extent are the patriarchal claims Hobbes makes integral to his overall theory, if indeed they are integral at all?