THE SUBSERVIENCE OF WOMEN IN MEDIEVAL EUROPEANTHOUGHT
Whether she was a nun or even the wife of an aristocrat,townsman, or peasant, a woman in Medieval and Renaissance Europe was considered inferior to men whether they were priests or husbands or fathers. Women were subject to the authority of men at virtually all stages of their lives.There are of course a few examples of strong women who rejected these traditional social attitudes, but beliefs about the correct social role of women were reinforced by the most powerful of Medieval European institutions, the Church.
The following selections present the Catholic Church's view of women in this period. This first brief reading is from Gratian,a twelfth-century jurist who authored the first systematic work on canon law (church law), and the second is by Thomas Aquinas, the well-known scholastic theologian of the thirteenth century.
Decretum of Gratian
Women should be subject to their men. The natural order for mankind is that women should serve men and children their parents, for it is just that the lesser serve the greater.
The image of God is in man, and it is one. Women were drawn from man, who has God's jurisdiction as if he were God's vicar, because he has the image of the one God. Therefore woman is not made in God's image.
Woman's authority is nil; let her in all things be subject to the rule of man. . . . And neither can she teach, nor be a witness, nor give a guarantee, nor sit in judgment.
Adam was beguiled by Eve, not she by him. It is right that he whom woman led into wrong doing should have her under his direction, so that he may not fail a second time through female levity.
Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas
As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition,or even from some external influence. . . . The image of God, in its principal signification, namely the intellectual nature, is found both in man and in woman. Hence after the words, "To the image of God He created him,"it is added, "Male and female He created them." Moreover it is said "them" in the plural . . . lest it should be thought that both sexes were united in one individual. But in a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning: and end of every creature.
Sources: Julia O'Faolain and Lauro Martines eds., Not in God's Image(Harper & Row, 1973).