The Masculinist Argument for a Mixed Constitution
By L. Moraitis
The term “masculinist” here does not necessarily refer to modern gender politics. In political theory, it generally refers to a tradition—classical and early-modern—where political virtues are conceptualized using gendered metaphors, especially the virtues associated with manliness (andreia, virtus): courage, steadiness, self-control, resistance to tyranny, and the ability to rule and be ruled.
A mixed constitution (combining monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) is valued in this tradition because it allegedly embodies and balances those “manly” political virtues. Human passions require restraint but restraint itself needs strength. A core masculinist premise is that human beings possess passions that can destabilize politics. The manly political order is one that governs passions through law and institutional counterweights, and cultivates disciplined civic character in citizens.
A mixed constitution is praised because it is strong enough to restrain passions without collapsing into softness (associated with luxury) or violence (associated with despotism).
Too much popular power brings instability, impulsiveness, lack of discipline. Too much elite or monarchical power begets softness, decadence, and, in the end, tyranny. Only a balanced constitution cultivates the virtues (courage, moderation, public-spiritedness) required for self-government.
Classical thinkers used gendered metaphors explicitly. Aristotle argued that a balanced constitution avoids the “feminizing” effects of excessive luxury and passive citizenship. Polybius described Rome’s mixed constitution as virile because each element checked the others, producing disciplined, martial, stable power. Machiavelli explicitly ties republican liberty to virtù—a masculine-coded capacity for energy, initiative, and conflict management.
The mixed constitution becomes a moral gymnasium: a system that forces each class or element to cultivate civic virtue through participation and resistance.
In this tradition, a citizenry under absolute monarchy or oligarchy becomes: passive, dependent, servile, and “soft” from lack of political exercise. Democracy alone is thought to foster indiscipline, excessive emotion, volatility, and susceptibility to demagogues. Thus, a mixed constitution is defended as the arrangement that best avoids both extremes of soft passivity and unrestrained license.
A key masculinist premise is that controlled struggle produces virtue. In a mixed constitution, the people check the elites as the elites check the people just as the executive checks both. This “agonistic” structure (struggle within rules) is believed to train citizens in courage and public-spiritedness, sustain martial readiness (Polybius, Livy), and prevent the degeneration of the polity into luxury or corruption. In short, managed conflict fosters manly virtue, making the state stronger.
Many ancient and early-modern theorists treat the polis or res publica as an enlarged household—a domain ordered by hierarchical, masculine virtues. The monarch corresponds to the paterfamilias (authority); the aristocracy corresponds to adult male household heads (deliberation, prudence); and the demos corresponds to the energetic youth (courage, activity). A mixed constitution “harmonizes” these masculine-coded functions, producing political stability by reflecting a morally ordered household writ large.
Finally, the masculinist argument links mixed constitutions to strong armies, social discipline, resistance to conquest, longevity of institutions, and duty and sacrifice among citizens. In Polybius, Rome’s military success is the prime example: the mixed constitution trains citizens to be courageous, dutiful, and willing to fight.
The masculinist argument for a mixed constitution holds that political order must cultivate and balance the masculine-coded virtues of courage, restraint, self-discipline, and public spiritedness. By combining monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, the mixed regime prevents the softness and servility produced by tyranny, the corruption and decadence produced by oligarchy, and the volatility and impulsiveness produced by the unrestrained demos. Its internal system of checks and conflict channels human passions into civic virtue, producing a stable, disciplined, martial, and “manly” political community capable of self-rule.