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Women's Historical Place in Society Base on the Aristotelian-Galenic Theory of Humors versus the Judeo-Christian Account of Creation

In the ancient world there were two basic cosmologies that accounted for women’s place in nature and society, the Aristotelian-Galenic theory of humors and the Judeo-Christian account of creation. For the moderns, biology, character, and social status are what shape explanations of what distinguish men from women. The ancients saw things differently. For them, gender (sexual temperament) was at the heart of what shaped sexuality. Gender indeed was a cosmological principle.
According to Aristotelian cosmology, women were imperfect men, and inferior to them. Women were considered inferior because of their lesser heat. To the ancients, there were four elements in the terrestrial sphere: fire, air, earth, and water. Fire and air were hot and associated with men while earth and water were cold and associated with women. The four humors of the body- yellow bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm- corresponded to the four elements, respectively, and were defined by their heat as we...

Posted by: Melissa T. Littlefield

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