Medieval Antifeminism

For the most of these texts, see the essential anthology, Alcuin Blamires, ed. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

Old Testament justifications for antifeminism:

Genesis 1:26-27: "[God] said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon earth. And God created man to His own image: to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them...."  

Proverbs 7:21-27, on the Temptress: "She entangled him with many words, and drew him away with the flattery of her lips. (22) Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to be a victim, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and now knowing that he is drawn like a fool to bonds. ... (24) Now therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my mouth. (25) Let not thy mind be drawn away in her ways: neither be thou deceived with her paths. (26) For she hath cast down many wounded, and the strongest have been slain by her. (27) Her house is the way to hell, reaching even to the inner chambers of death." 

Ecclesiasticus 25:22-27: "(22) There is no head worse than the head of a serpent: (23) And there is no anger above the anger of a woman. It will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon, than to dwell with a wicked woman. (24) The wickedness of a woman changeth her face: and she darkeneth her countenance as a bear: and showeth it like sack-cloth ... (26) All malice is short to the malice of a woman, let the lot of sinners fall upon her. (27) As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man."

The New Testament and the Church Fathers: 

Tertullian, c.160-c.225. A pagan of Carthage, converted to Christian by AD 197. Best known for De cultu feminarum (On the Appearance of Women). A book of advice, warning against overdressing and facepainting. Trans. C.W. Marx; Blamires 51. 

"The judgement of God upon this sex [the female] lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die. And do you still think of adorning yourself above and beyond your tunics of animal skin?"  

"You should know that in order to achieve perfect, that is, Christian, chastity you must not only not seek to be the object of desire, but also despise the very idea of being one." 

St Paul, First Epistle of St Paul to Timothy, 2:8-15; Blamires 37. 

            "(8) I will therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up pure hands without anger and contention. (9) In like manner women also in decent apparel: adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire. (10) But as it becometh women professing godliness with good works. (11) Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. (12) But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence. (13) For Adam was first formed; then Eve. (14) And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced was in the transgression. (15) Yet she shall be saved through childbearing: if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety."

Late-Classical Medicine:  

Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium (On the Generation of Animals). Trans. A.L. Peck (Blamires 39-41). 

"An animal is a living body, a body with Soul in it. the female always provides the material, the male provides that which fashions the material into shape; this, in our view, is the specific characteristic of each of the sexes: that is what it means to be male or female. Hence, necessity requires that the female should provide the physical part, i.e. a quantity of material, but not that the male should do so, since necessity does not require that the tools should reside in the product that is being made, nor that the agent which uses them should do so. Thus the physical part, the body, comes from the female, and the Soul from the male, since the Soul is the essence of a particular body." 

"Once birth has taken place everything reaches its perfection sooner in females than in males--e.g. puberty, maturity, old age--because females are weaker and colder in their nature; and we should look upon the female state as being as it were a deformity, though one which occurs in the ordinary course of nature." 

"A woman is as it were an infertile male; the female, in fact, is female on account of inability of a sort, viz., it lacks the power to concoct semen out of the final state of nourishment ... because of the coldness of its nature...." 

"...we should look upon the female state as being as it were a deformity, though one which occurs in the ordinary course of nature." 

Galen, De Usu Partium (On the Use of the Parts [of the body]). Trans. Margaret Tallmadge May (Blamires 41-2).  

"Now just as mankind is the most perfect of all animals, so within mankind the man is more perfect than the woman, and the reason for his perfection is his excess of heat, for heat is Nature's primary instrument. Hence in those animals that have less of it, her workmanship is necessarily more imperfect, and so it is no wonder that the female is less perfect than the male by as much as she is colder than he. In fact, just as the mole has imperfect eyes, though certainly not so imperfect as they are in those animals that do not have any trace of them at all, so too the woman is less perfect than the man in respect to the generative parts. For the parts were formed within her when she was still a foetus, but could not because of the defect in heat emerge and project on the outside, and this, though making the animal itself that was being formed less perfect than one that is complete in all respects, provided no small advantage for the race; for there needs must be a female. Indeed, you ought not to think that our Creator would purposely make half the whole race imperfect and, as it were, mutilated, unless there was to be some great advantage in such a mutilation."

On Education:

 Humbert de Romans (1194-1277), preacher. "For Girls or Maidens who are in the World." Sermon xcvii; qtd Bede Jarret, Social Theories of the Middle Ages 1200-1500 (London: Frank Cass & Co, 1968), 87-88. 

"Just as it is praiseworthy in Christ to preach to boys, so is it also an act of charity to instruct girls in the faith when the opportunity occurs, either in their schools or at their homes or wherever else they be. Note that these girls, especially if they be the daughters of the rich, ought especially to devote themselves to study, for to this purpose their parents have intended them. Hence they ought opportunely to know the Psalter or Hours of Our Lady or the Office of the Dead, or other prayers to God, and so be more fitted for religious life should they wish to join it later, or more fitted for the study of Sacred Scripture, like Paula and Eustachia and others who remained unwedded, and who because of their devotion to books became deeply versed in sacred letters. Of this knowledge you have an example in Blessed Agnes, who went to school, in Blessed Cecilia, Catharine, Lucy, Agatha, who were all learned, as their legends bear witness. Let them, therefore, not be solicitous about their clothes ... let them beware of levity in dance or song or game ... let them fear men. Let them take some good spiritual man to be their father whose counsel and teaching shall rule them.... Let them be at home with their parents and grandparents, not wander astray from their homes."  

Anonymous, De Eruditione Principum:  

"...girls, particularly of noble families, whilst under charge of others by reason of their tender age, should be made to study letters and occupied always with some work. Humility, piety and meekness were to be instilled into them, as well as a love of silence, and chastity..." qtd Jarret, 88.

For the defence: 

Marbod of Rennes (c.1035-1123). Bishop of Rennes, Brittany in his sixties. In two works, "The Femme Fatale" (De Meretrice) and "The Good Woman" (De Matrona), both in his Liber Decem Capitulorum (Book with Ten Chapters) he states first anti- and then pro-feminist positions.  

"De Meretrice": "Her sex is envious, capricious, irascible, avaricious, as well as intemperate with drink and voracious in the stomach. She relishes revenge and is always panting for the upper hand, without the slightest qualm about crime or deceit so long as she wins..." Trans. Blamires 101. 

"De Matrona": "Of all the things which are seen to have been bestowed through God's gift to the advantage of humanity, we consider nothing to be more beautiful or better than a good woman, who is a part of our own flesh, and we part of her own flesh. Quite rightly we are compelled by the law of nature to love her, and this is to the benefit of society, even if she troubles us. For since we are the same our lives are governed by the same conditions and there is nothing we do not have in common, being alike in all things save in difference of sex. In the beginning the law of nature treated us equally: we eat the same food; our need for clothing is the same; we provoke tears and laughter by similar emotions." Trans. C.W. Marx; Blamires 228-9.