by

Thoughts About Women From Ancients




Catholic: 

Woman is a temple built over a sewer. –Tertullian, “the father of Latin Christianity” in De Cultu Feminarum (c160-225)


In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die… Woman, you are the gate to hell. –Tertullian, “the father of Latin Christianity” (c160-225): De Cultu Feminarum (On the Apparel of Women), Chapter 1


[Women’s] very consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame.–Saint Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (c150-215): Pedagogues II, 33, 2


Nor are the women to smear their faces with the ensnaring devices of wily cunning. . . The Instructor [Christ] orders them to go forth “in becoming apparel, and adorn themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, subject to their own husbands.” –Saint Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (c150-215): The Instructor


For it is improper for a woman to speak in an assembly, no matter what she says, even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since they come from the mouth of a woman. –Origen (d. 258): Fragments on First Corinthians, 74


Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as when he and the woman are joined together into one. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354-430) On the Trinity


What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman… I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354 – 430): De genesi ad litteram, 9, 5-9


Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one’s guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. … Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good. –Saint Albertus Magnus, Dominican theologian, 13th century: Quaestiones super de animalibus XV q. 11


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. –Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, 13th century: Summa Theologica I q. 92 a. 1


It was necessary for woman to be made, as the Scripture says, as a "helper" to man; not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works; but as a helper in the work of generation. –Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 92


Protestant:

The word and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes. –Martin Luther, Reformer (1483-1546), Works 12.94


No gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise. –Martin Luther, Reformer (1483-1546), Table Talk


Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children. –Martin Luther, Reformer (1483-1546), Table Talk


Thus the woman, who had perversely exceeded her proper bounds, is forced back to her own position. She had, indeed, previously been subject to her husband, but that was a liberal and gentle subjection; now, however, she is cast into servitude. –John Calvin, Reformer (1509-1564): Commentary on Genesis, p. 172.


Do not any longer contend for mastery, for power, money, or praise. Be content to be a private, insignificant person, known and loved by God and me. . . . of what importance is your character to mankind, if you was buried just now Or if you had never lived, what loss would it be to the cause of God. –John Wesley, founder of Methodist movement (1703-1791): letter to his wife, July 15, 1774


Even as the church must fear Christ Jesus, so must the wives also fear their husbands. And this inward fear must be shewed by an outward meekness and lowliness in her speeches and carriage to her husband. . . . For if there be not fear and reverence in the inferior, there can be no sound nor constant honor yielded to the superior. –John Dod: A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements, Puritan guidebook first published in 1603


The second duty of the wife is constant obedience and subjection. –John Dod: A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements, Puritan guidebook first published in 1603


The root of masculine is stronger, and of feminine weaker. The sun is a governing planet to certain planets, while the moon borrows her light from the sun, and is less or weaker. –Joseph Smith, founder of LDS movement (1805-1844): History of the Church, V, p. 211


Women are made to be led, and counseled, and directed. . . . And if I am not a good man, I have no just right in this Church to a wife or wives, or the power to propagate my species. What then should be done with me? Make a eunuch of me, and stop my propagation. –Heber C. Kimball, venerated early LDS apostle (1801-1868): JD 5:29


A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. –Official Faith and Message Statement of Southern Baptist Convention, Summer 1998, (15.7 million members)


The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. — Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist leader (1930-): fundraising letter July 1992


The Holiness of God is not evidenced in women when they are brash, brassy, boisterous, brazen, head-strong, strong-willed, loud-mouthed, overly-talkative, having to have the last word, challenging, controlling, manipulative, critical, conceited, arrogant, aggressive, assertive, strident, interruptive, undisciplined, insubordinate, disruptive, dominating, domineering, or clamoring for power. Rather, women accept God’s holy order and character by being humbly and unobtrusively respectful and receptive in functional subordination to God, church leadership, and husbands. –James Fowler: Women in the Church, 1999.


Western Philosophers:


Women and men have the same nature in respect to the guardianship of the state, save insofar as the one is weaker and the other is stronger... but in all of them women is inferior to man - Socrates


A man also rules his wife and children, both categories as free persons, but not with the same form of rule. He rules his wife as a citizen and his children as a monarch, because the male is by nature better suited to leadership than the female... . And all possess the various parts of the soul, but possess them in different ways; for the slave has not got the deliberative part at all, and the female has it, but without full authority, while the child has it, but in an undeveloped form. - Aristotle, Politics


The female is as it were a deformed male – Aristotle


Women are accustomed to creep into dark places, and when dragged out into the light they will exert their utmost powers of resistance ... therefore, as I said before, in most places they will not endure to have the truth spoken without raising a tremendous outcry. - Plato


"Is there any natural activity in which men are not better in all these respects than women? We need not waste time over weaving and various cooking operations, at which women are thought to be experts, and get badly laughed at if a man does them better.' 'It's quite true', he replied, 'that in general the one sex is much better at everything than the other. A good many women, it is true, are better than a good many men at a good many things. But the general rule is as you stated it." - Plato


There's no such thing as picking out the best woman: it's only a question of comparative badness. (Nam optuma nulla potest eligi; Alia alia pejor est.) - Plautus, Aulularia


Thales of Miletus: "He believed that men were naturally better than women, and that Greeks were better than barbarians" 


Pythagoras: "While Pythagoras encouraged women to be submissive to men, his reasoning was based on the desire to preserve harmony in the home."


There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman. - Pythagoras 


Women are apt to seduce men into making irrational political decisions - Baruch Spinoza


Women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality, but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel


Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies - Arthur Schopenhauer


When a woman turns to scholarship there is usually something wrong with her sexual apparatus - Friedrich Nietzsche


From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty. - Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love... Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows... - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra 


Woman! One-half of mankind is weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant... she needs a religion of weakness that glorifies being weak, loving, and being humble as divine: or better, she makes the strong weak—she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong... Woman has always conspired with the types of decadence, the priests, against the 'powerful', the 'strong', the men- - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will To Power


Thomas Hobbes: "While he sees women as free and equal to men in the state of nature, he postulates their subjection to male rule in the civil state without any apparent explanation."


God, in this text, gives not, that I see, any authority to Adam over Eve, or to men over their wives, but only foretells what should be the woman's lot, how by this providence he would order it so that she should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the laws of mankind and customs of nations have ordered it so - John Locke, Locke 1969:37


But the husband and wife, though they have but one common concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes have different wills too; it therefore being necessary that the last determination - i.e., the rule - should be placed somewhere, it naturally falls to the man's share, as the abler and stronger - John Locke, Locke 1969:161


[F]or my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly - Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince


As the bees in their sheltered nests feed the drones, those conspirators in badness, and while they busy themselves each day and every day till sundown making the white honeycomb, the drones stay in their sheltered shells and pile the toil of others into their own bellies, even so as a bane for mortal men has high-thundering Zeus created women, conspirators in causing difficulty. - Hesiod, Theogeny and Works and Days, trans. M.L West, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, p. 20-21


There is but one thing in the world worse than a shameless woman, and that's another woman - Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae


Eastern Philosophers:


The female’s defects- greed, hate, and delusion and other defilements- are greater than the male’s...You (women) should have such an intention... Because I wish to be freed from the impurities of the woman’s body, I will acquire the beautiful and fresh body of a man - Buddha


Women and people of low birth are very hard to cope with. If you are friendly to them, they get out of hand, and if you keep your distance, they resent it. - Confucius


One hundred women are not worth a single testicle. - Confucius


A woman does not become pious by giving alms to the needy, performing austerities, and fasts and offering prayers at sacred place, as by having the water she gets after washing her husband's feet - Chanakya, Arthashastra


Fire, water, woman, snake, fool and member of royal family be dealt with very carefully because all these six are very dangerous and may take time at any time. - Chanakya, Arthashastra


Certain things like speaking lie, starting a work without any thought, foolish acts, greed, daredevilry behavior, impurity and cruelty are basic elements of female's nature. - Chanakya, Arthashastra 


A firm bosom; sparkling eyes; a small mouth [...] are characteristics of a woman which are always praised. But when we neglect the surface we find that the internal characteristics corresponding to these are hardness of heart, shifty eyes, a deceitful face, insecurity and cunning. When we bear in mind both the superficial and inward characteristics of a woman, we must declare that the one who should possess them can be dear only to the beasts of the field. - Bhartṛhari, The Vairagya Sataka


Woman is the chain by which man is attached to the chariot of folly. - Bhartṛhari, The Sringa Sataka



“When irreligion is prominent in the family, O Krsna, the women of the family become polluted, and from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Vrsni, comes unwanted progeny.” - Bhagavad-Gita 1:40










Source: Laws VI

Source: The Republic, Book V

Source: Aulularia

Source: Pythagoras, quoted in Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement, ed. Robin Morgan (Random House, 1970) p.31






Source: Theogeny and Works and Days, trans. M.L West, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK, p. 20-21








Source: The Sringa Sataka

Source: Bhagavad-Gita 1:40

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts