The vestal and the fasces

by Jeanne Lorraine Schroeder

In this feminist exploration of the erotics of the marketplace, Hegel's notion of property and Lacan's idea of the phallus serve parallel functions in creating the subjectivity necessary for self-actualization. Subjectivity requires intersubjective relationships mediated through a regime of possessing, enjoying, and exchanging an object of desire. For Hegel, this regime is property; for Lacan, it is sexuality, symbolized by the Phallus, which we conflate with the male organ and the female body. Property law, in Jeanne Schroeder's account, is implicitly figured by similar anatomical metaphors for that which men wish to possess and that which women try to be and enjoy. This is reflected in imagery taken from ancient Rome - the ax and bundle of sticks known as the Fasces and the virgin priestess called the Vestal. Schroeder traces the persistence of phallic metaphors in modern jurisprudence. Feminist scholars, social theorists, political scientists, philosophers, and lawyers will find in