Rousseau
Rousseaunotes that the most ancient and only natural society is that of the family. He also states that children are only bound to their father only insofar as they need for him to provide for that, and following that period familial association is voluntary. Rousseauthen says that the family is the prototype for civil society; the populace are to be the children and the sovereign the father. OK: Now, Holtz onRousseau Rousseaumakes his mistake when he says that the populace is like the children and the sovereign like the parent. For evenRousseaunotes that the children of parents, once they become adults, have liberty to deviate from their parents’ desires. And, when dealing with civil society, we are not dealing with a population comprised of children, we are dealing with adult citizens. It is important to recall thatRousseaugives the father authority based on the children’s needs. And while adults, too, may have needs, they are very different from the needs of children And since adults don’t need the same kind of assistance that children do, the relationship can’t possibly be the same.. So the nature of the relationship between government and citizen must be very different then the relationship between father and child. A more correct analogy, if one is to bring family into it, is between the parent and the adult child.