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What I mean by power is a tension in society between those who have privileged knowledge and those who don’t. Power is not a stable constant. It is contingent upon shifts in knowledge within society itself. The avenues by which celibate roles gain an upper hand, depends in part where the non-celibates have control and vice-versa. These roles cross over and get distributed. There are significant shifts in the power knowledge divide, which Foucault calls “epistemic shifts.” This is the basic struggle or tension between power and knowledge that can be traced out through history through an archaeology — a search for origins. To see how celibacy has held sway in history, especially among those like Merlin, who represent powerful celibate men, is to dig out the origins of this power and name the origins.
