ABSTRACT
Medieval Western Christianity presented adherents with contrasting yet coexisting models of proper masculinity, normative femininity, and the place of sex in Christian life. Scripture supplied the most authoritative edicts, but if we place key texts one on top of another, like sheets of transparencies, we quickly see inconsistencies. First, concerning men and women, take Genesis 2–3, from Adam’s creation as first human, through the secondary creation of Eve as helper ‘fit’ for him, to Eve’s disobedience and punishment: ‘In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee’ (Genesis 3:16).1 Over this lay Paul to the Galatians 3:28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus’. Further, Ecclesiastes 7:26, ‘I have found a woman more bitter than death’; and again Paul (Ephesians 5:22), ‘Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord’. Yet Proverbs 31:10 advised that the man who found a virtuous woman should have treasure past anything beyond the seas.
