Question

I’m doing some reasearch on women in science and wondered what your thoughts were on what Thomas’ views on women were. Were they similar to Aristotle’s?

Answer

The most common reference to the views of Aquinas and Aristotle on women cites Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 92, a. 1, Obj. 1. The question is whether woman should have been created in the beginning of the world, before the Fall of Adam and the introduction of sin into the world. Aquinas entertains the objection that, because of her imperfection, woman should not have been part of the original creation.

Objection 1: It would seem that the woman should not have been made in the first production of things. For the Philosopher says (De Gener. ii, 3), that “the female is a misbegotten male.” But nothing misbegotten or defective should have been in the first production of things. Therefore woman should not have been made at that first production.

Aquinas’ basic reply is “yes,” woman should have been produced in the Eden, since she is necessary for the generation of the species. Having answered thus (and upheld the reasonableness of God’s actually having created woman in Eden), he has to contend with the objection which cites the leading scientific authority of the time, Aristotle. He does so by conceding Aristotle’s point that woman is “misbegotten,” but only considered as an individual and only with respect to the body or matter, and not the soul. (By the way, Aquinas’ words which are usually translated as “defective and misbegotten” are in Latin deficiens et occasionatus, which can mean “unfinished and caused accidentally.” Some have argued that, because of this alternate reading, Aquinas is free of the negative connotations which attach to some translations of his works.)

ST Ia q.92, a.1, Reply to Objection 1: 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 defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence; such as that of a south wind, which is moist, as the Philosopher observes (De Gener. Animal. iv, 2). On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not misbegotten, but is included in nature’s intention as directed to the work of generation.

Thus, in spite of Aristotle’s biology, Aquinas believes that woman is perfect in her nature as directed to the generation of the human species. This hardly makes him a champion of the rights and dignity of women; he does seem to suffer from the view (quite universal at the time), that women are inferior to men in both mind and body, and are naturally subject to them. His version is somewhat enlightened, though; he did not believe women are the slaves of men.

ST q.92, a.1, Reply to Objection 2: Subjection is twofold. One is servile, by virtue of which a superior makes use of a subject for his own benefit; and this kind of subjection began after sin. There is another kind of subjection which is called economic or civil, whereby the superior makes use of his subjects for their own benefit and good; and this kind of subjection existed even before sin. For good order would have been wanting in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates.

Aquinas does even have a few words to say in favor of the fact that women are equal in dignity to men. Defending the fittingness of God’s making Eve from the rib of Adam, Aquinas takes Scripture in an allegorical sense to signify the equality between them.

I answer that, It was right for the woman to be made from a rib of man. First, to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither use authority over man,’ and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man’s contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet.

ST, q. 92, a. 3

Being made from his side, she is his equal, though still subject to his direction. I don’t think Aquinas was a rabid misogynist (as I have sometimes heard it alleged), but neither was he much ahead of his time. He does not seem to have had as low an estimation of women as others in the Middle Ages, though.

Update

In a 1978 issue of the Christendom College journal,Fides et Ratio,Kristin M. Popik, PhD, published a condensation of her doctoral dissertation at the University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome on St. Thomas’ philosophy of woman. Dr. Popik was the first woman to receive the Ph.D. in philosophy from that institution. The first part of the essay is available online at Catholic Culture or as a PDF from Christendom College (not available as of 2/11/25. Thesecond part is available from Christendom College and as aPDF.) Below are herConclusions and Comment to her first part.

Conclusion And Comment

So the essential equality of men and women as humans, and their fundamental equality in relation to God, is countered in the philosophy of St. Thomas by a profound inequality. Not only is femininity a lesser perfection than masculinity, and consequently female bodies are of a weaker complexion than male bodies, but this inequality is also transferred to the souls, which inform those bodies with the result that women’s souls also are inferior and weak in comparison with men’s souls. Although women are less human than men in the sense that they are less perfected in the characteristically human difference of reason and reason’s control of actions, they do not differ specifically from men. They have the same substantial form, the same nature, and the same end; but they differ in perfection of that form and its operations, and in the degree of perfection of that nature.

It is difficult to determine the degree to which St. Thomas’ philosophy is based on his observation of real women, on empirical evidence of their rational abilities and their virtue. He supports his theory of the inferiority of women on purely philosophical grounds, and ultimately on Aristotle’s theory of generation, but these arguments appear to be mere explanations for an inferiority, which he considered to be evident to all. And yet St. Thomas is commonly believed to have had very little contact with real women, other than his immediate family from whom he was separated at an early age and for almost all of his life. In fact the only place where real women are mentioned in Thomas’ theory are as exceptions: the real women he encounters in Scriptural historical accounts, for example, are not cause for a reexamination of his theory but rather exceptions to it.

The reason why St. Thomas, having admitted that not all women exhibit the inferiority which is natural to them, did not apparently either reconsider his theory or do more empirical investigation of real women to determine whether or not they were in fact inferior in general to men lies probably in the fact that his explanation of this inferiority is so tightly argued that it functions as evidence for this inferiority. That is to say, it is impossible for St. Thomas that woman not be inferior to man in reason and in reason’s control of human acts if in fact femininity is inferior to masculinity and souls are proportioned to their bodies. Given Aristotle’s theory of generation as done by males, St. Thomas could have (and no doubt would have) concluded that women are inferior to men in the rational operations of their souls even if he had never seen a woman or heard that they were considered by all to be so inferior. The dependence of St. Thomas’ philosophy of woman on the generative biology of Aristotle, then, cannot be overestimated. As evidence for her inferiority, this biological theory argues the necessity of that inferiority. In other words, while St. Thomas appears to accept the inferiority of women in reason and virtue as something given in experience (either his or the common experience of men) and to offer his arguments as mere explanations of this inferiority, those arguments, once given the truth of Aristotle’s biology, conclude so necessarily to woman’s inferiority that he could presume that inferiority to be verified by experience. If some of St. Thomas’ conclusions about the nature of woman are not true, the fault lies not in his philosophical reasoning, but in his acceptance of Aristotle’s biology as his starting principle.

So given that the male is the active principle in generation, that females do not participate actively in generation but merely supply the matter, and hence that femininity is a lesser perfection than masculinity, that females are generated accidentally, and that female bodies are less perfect than masculine bodies, Thomas concludes that women are less perfected than men in their souls, in higher reasoning, and in those virtues which require reason’s direction of actions. As will be shown in the second part of this study, this inferiority is the reason why the woman is subject to the man in domestic, civil, and ecclesiastical societies.

Updated February 11, 2025

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