1. Society, Patriarchy & Sexual Dimorphism
Dr. Andy Mansfield

2. Three Orders of Society
Those who:
fought (nobility)
prayed (clergy)
worked (peasants)
Oversimplification
C15: Nobility most powerful
Race & Blood

3. Town & Country 85-90% lived in the countryside (agriculture)
Mental world was local
Lords and Peasants: ‘vertical relationship’
Urban population: grew from C11
Town life
C16 Poverty: many poor in town & country
Malthusian Trap: arithmetic vs. geometric

4. The Stages of Life
St. Ambrose’s Seven Stages: infancy – boyhood – adolescence – young manhood – mature manhood – older manhood – old age.
Sexuality & Women
Increasing importance of the Individual

5. Life and Death Marriage & Birth Patterns
North vs. South: (nuclear & complex)
Death Rates

6. The Household Masculine & Feminine codes
Domesticity & Division of Labour
Partnership
Children: honour & obedience

7. Nichols, Duty of Inferiours
‘Now, the Husband being the Prince of the Family, and the Head of the Wife, his Will is the Rule of Obedience for Her and all that dwell in it. Therefore whatever he has seriously declared it is his Will she should do, by Vertue of his Superiority over Her, She is obliged to do it’.
- pp

8. Patriarchy Aristotle: ‘Imperfect men’ (i) ‘monstrous’ & ‘deformity’
(ii) Procreation not companionship
Twin Pillars of Patriarchy:
Eve’s Sin
Strengths & Weaknesses
Patriarchy consolidated in society
Aristotle ( BCE)

9. Schochet on Patriarchy
3 Strands: Anthropological, Moral & Ideological
Subordinated Society: home & community
Church Ideology & the pulpit
The Common People
King’s Authority
Order & Rank: control

10. Political Patriarchy Sir Robert Filmer (1588 - 1653) Adamite Kingship
Exclusion Crisis (1678 – 81) Absolutism & Obedience
Locke: no subordination
Patriarcha (pub. 1680)

11. Four Humours Theory
Hippocrates (460 – 375 BCE) Four Humours: Phlegm/ Black Bile/ Yellow Bile/ Blood Blood: ‘life-force’ (spirit) Four temperaments - Avicenna (980 – 1037)

12. The Soul Heat: immortal substance of life Menstruation & Semen
Illness & Medicine
Cosmological Issue

13. The One Sex Model

14. Gender & Sex Sexuality a C19 construct Male sexuality the baseline
Views on sex – (Evil vs. Natural)
The Reformation – Luther’s view of women
Orgasm & transgression
Sex and Gender

15. Anatomy Scientific Revolution (1500 - 1700): Discover God’s work
Make a name
Discoveries in anatomy & gynaecology
Vesalius ( )

16. Anatomical Discoveries
“no similarity comes in between the vagina and the male penis, none between the uterus and the scrotum; neither in the structure, form and size of the testicles the same, nor in the distribution and insertion of the spermatic vessels” - Du Laurens (1602) in Stohlberg

17. Sexual Dimorphism Anatomical difference Balanced temperament
Varandaeus: female superiority

18. The Status Quo Patriarchy ingrained
Physical strength & Biblical authority
Britain: social reforms & laws (1960s)