ABSTRACT
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead has counseled: when questioning the ideas of an epoch, do not focus on those positions that are explicitly defended. Rather, he says, "There will be some fundamental assumption s which adherents of all the variant systems... unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so obvious tha t people do not kno w wha t the y ar e assuming becaus e no other way of putting things has ever occurred t o them." 1 Th e consistency of assumptions, o f unambiguous norms, about women in history leads one to suspect tha t they ar e rooted in just suc h an "obvious" way o f putting thing s — the belief that things must have always been that way deriving from an even deeper conviction tha t woma n ha s always been that way , tha t is , in durance to he r organism.
