the same, they haue betrayed[20] to strangiers their countrie and citie:
and some to haue bene so desirous of dominion, that for the obteining of
the same, they haue murthered the children of their owne sonnes. Yea and
some haue killed with crueltie their owne husbandes[21] and children. But
to me it is sufficient (because this parte of nature is not my moste sure
foundation) to haue proued[22], that men illuminated onlie by the light of
nature, haue seen and haue determined, that it is a thing moste repugnant
to nature, that women rule and gouerne ouer men. For those that will not
permit a woman to haue power ouer her owne sonnes, will not permit her (I
am assured) to haue rule ouer a realme[23]: and those that will not suffer
her to speake in defense of those that be accused, nether that will admit
her accusation intended against man, will not approuel her, that she shal
sit in iudgement crowned with the royal crowne, vsurping authoritie in the
middest of men. But now to the second part of nature: In the whiche I
include the reueled will and perfect ordinance of God, and against this
parte of nature, I say, that it doth manifestlie repugne that any woman
shal reigne or beare dominion ouer man. For God first by the order of his
creation, and after by the curse and malediction pronounced against the
woman, by the, reason of her rebellion, hath pronounced the contrarie.
First, I say, that woman in her greatest perfection, was made to serue and
obey man[24], not to rule and command him: [25] As saint Paule doth reason
in these wordes. 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 therfore oght the woman to haue a power vpon her head (that is a
couerture in signe of subiection). Of whiche words it is plaine that the
Apostle meaneth, that woman in her greatest perfection shuld haue knowen,
that man was Lord aboue her: and therfore that she shulde neuer haue
pretended any kind of superioritie aboue him, no more then do the angels
aboue God the creator[26], or aboue Christ Iesus their head. So, I say,
that in her greatest perfection woman was created to be subiect to man: