All of these theories emerged during the Enlightenment except for the Divine Right of Kings, which had its origins in the autocratic monarchies of the centuries that preceded the Enlightenment. The Divine Right of Kings stated that the right of the king to rule was divinely ordained by God and that to resist the king was therefore to resist the will of God.

Deism is the belief in a “watchmaker god,” a god who created the universe with a series of natural laws and then sat back and allowed the development of the universe to unfold. Deism emerged during the Enlightenment as a theocratic application of Enlightenment theories on natural law. It was widely embraced by Enlightenment thinkers, including Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and Voltaire and involved the rejection of the established Christian order in Europe.

During the Renaissance, the status of upper- and middle-class women suffered dramatically. Women’s minds were considered inadequate for higher learning, and women’s bodies were considered to be owned by their father or husband. Noticeably, the standard punishment for rape across Europe changed dramatically from the Medieval period (castration or death) to the Renaissance period (a fine payable to the father or husband). The status of peasant women remained relatively stable during the transition from the Medieval period to the Renaissance period.

During the Renaissance period, the Spanish government enforced a strict religious orthodoxy that prevented the spread of Renaissance ideals like individualism and faith in the ability of humans. Furthermore, the Jews and the Muslims, who made up much of Spain's middle classes, were forced to leave the country, taking with them the resources and inclination that might have spread Renaissance values in Spain.

Throughout 1848, revolutions spread through France, the German States, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Denmark. While all stemming from different internal causes, the revolutionaries were largely arguing for universal suffrage, liberal governments, and widespread democratic ideals. The revolutions ended a number of monarchies and enacted some reforms, but were largely reversed by reactionary movements within just a few years.

Thomas Hobbes argued that the state should allow for only one religion to be practiced uniformly throughout it. He believed this was necessary to encourage order and stability and to prevent revolution.

The female suffrage movement really took off in the middle of the nineteenth century, but was unable to gain much ground in European society until early in the twentieth century. The turning point was the outbreak of World War One, when so many men were forced away from their workplaces to fight, and die, on the battlefield. After the women of this time period were given new responsibilities, they demanded new rights to go with them, and many governments found that they no longer could withhold the right to vote from women. The majority of European governments extended the right to vote to women either during or shortly after World War One; however, notable late adopters include France in 1944, Italy in 1947, and Switzerland in 1971.

Thomas Hobbes was an Enlightenment philosopher who is usually contrasted against John Locke. Both men wrote extensively on the state of nature, the social contract, and the role of the state, but came to very different conclusions. While Locke believed the role of the state was to preserve each individual’s right to life, liberty, and property ownership, Hobbes believed that the role of the state was to protect each individual from the aggression of other individuals. Hobbes had little faith in mankind in its natural state and believed the state existed to prevent people from killing one another and stealing from one another.

Hobbes' idea of the Social Contract stems from humans' desire for safety by giving up some of their individual rights. The main example of the social contract is the implicit agreement that people make to give power to social institutions to imprison or confine some people in society under the assumption that, overall, if the freedom of some violent people is compromised the overall safety of most people will be preserved. While everyone forfeits their absolute freedom in this case, the social contract holds that this loss of absolute freedom is accompanied by the freedom gained through societal protection.

It is widely accepted that Poland has been partitioned three times (in 1772, 1793, and 1795). Although Nazi Germany and the USSR would divide up Poland in the Molotov-Ribbontrop Agreement, this agreement was never stabilized and never acknowledged by the USSR following the war and is therefore not considered to be a "partition" as commonly defined.