ABSTRACT

Article 1 Should woman have been made in that original creation of things ? THE FIRST POINT:1 It seems that woman ought not to have been produced in the original production of things. For the Philosopher says that the female is a male manqué. But nothing manqué or defective should have been produced in the first establish­ment of things; so woman ought not to have been produced then.2 Again, subjection and inferiority are a result of sin; for it was after sin that woman was told, Thou shalt be under the power o f man, and Gregory1 says that where we have done no wrong, we are all equal. Yet woman is by nature of lower capacity and quality than man; for the active cause is always more honour­able than the passive, as Augustine says. So woman ought not to have been produced in the original production of things before sin.3 Again, occasions of sin should be eliminated. But God foresaw that woman would be an occasion of sin for man. So he ought not to have produced her. ON THE OTHER HAND, there is Genesis: It is not good fo r man to be alone; let us make him a help that is like himself. REPLY: It is absolutely necessary to make woman, for the reason Scripture mentions, as a help for man; not indeed to help him in any other work, as some have maintained, because where most work is concerned man can get help more conveniently from another man than from a woman; but to help him in the work of procreation. This may be more clearly appreciated if we consider the procreative pattern in living things. At the bottom of the scale there are some living things which have no active procreative power themselves, but are procreated by an agent of a different species; like those plants and animals which are generated with­out seed by the active force of heavenly bodies out of suitable matter.Next there are some living things which have their active and passive procreative powers joined together, as, for example, those plants which are generated from seed. Plants have no nobler function than procreation; so it is proper that they should be procreating all the time, and have the active power of procrea­tion continually joined to the passive.