“The superiority of the woman was not a fancy but a fact. Man's business was to fight, or hunt, or feast or make love. The man was also the travelling partner in commerce, commonly absent from home for months together, while the woman carried on the business. The woman ruled the household and the workshop; cared for the economy; supplied the intelligence and dictated the taste. Her ascendancy was secured by her alliance with the Church, into which she sent her most intelligent children; and a priest or clerk, for the most part, counted socially as a woman. Both physically and mentally the woman was robust, as the men often complained, and she did not greatly resent being treated as a man. Sometimes the husband beat her, dragged her about by the hair, locked her up in the house; but he was quite conscious that she always got even with him in the end. As a matter of fact, probably she got more than even. On this point, history, legend, poetry, romance, and especially the popular Fabliaux,— invented to amuse the gross tastes of the coarser class,— are all agreed, and one could give scores of volumes illustrating it.”

— Henry Adams

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The superiority of the woman was not a fancy but a fact. Man's business was to fight, or hunt, or feast or make love. T…" by Henry Adams?

Henry Adams photo

Henry Adams311

journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918

Related quotes

“She was the most intelligent woman of her day and she refused to get married in nine languages.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, Elizabeth

“Healthy love is the love that embraces a single, whole woman, including her character and her intelligence.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

L'amore sano è quello che abbraccia una donna sola e intera, compreso il suo carattere e la sua intelligenza.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 14; p. 16.

“First, I say, that woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him. As St. Paul does reason in these words: "Man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have a power upon her head" [1 Cor. 11:8-10] (that is, a cover in sign of subjection). Of which words it is plain that the apostle means, that woman in her greatest perfection should have known that man was lord above her; and therefore that she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above him, no more than do the angels above God the Creator, or above Christ their head. [38] So I say, that in her greatest perfection, woman was created to be subject to man.”

John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian

“Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which he has bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love is a taking of man within her, and act of birth and rebirth, of child bearing and man bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to BE. But for a woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment when man rests inside of her.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

May 25, 1932
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

“No woman ever hates a man
for being in love with her;
but mainly a woman hates a
man for being her friend.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

“To an intelligent woman, the essential thing is to conquer her mind, not her body.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Ad una donna intelligente, l'essenziale è conquistare la sua mente, non il suo corpo.
Source: prevale.net

“Any woman who tries to influence a man in subtle ways is a fool. Every woman should influence her man, but she should do it as a full and open partner—and not in some secret fashion.”

Martha Beall Mitchell (1918–1976) Wife of American politician

[Martha Mitchell, Saturday Evening Post, Fall 1971, 243, 2, 50-53]

“It is so easy for a woman to become what the man she loves believes her to be”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.”

Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) American author and egyptologist

“Man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have a power upon her head.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians

I Corinthians 11:8-10
First Epistle to the Corinthians

Related topics