God’s ‘Excellent Work’: The Reformation’s Defense of Woman – Steven Wedgeworth

ABSTRACT: Throughout church history, some theologians have followed Aristotle’s description of woman as a “deformed” or “malformed” man. The Reformers, however, celebrated woman as “a most excellent work” of God, equally capable of virtue and worthy of love, respect, and justice. Together with their doctrine of male headship, the Reformers’ defense of woman offers a position close to what many call “complementarity” today.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Steven Wedgeworth (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary), pastor of Christ Church in South Bend, Indiana, to investigate the Reformers’ defense of woman.

As a whole, the tradition of the Christian church stands opposed to the modern commitment to sexual egalitarianism, especially when it comes to ministerial ordination and headship within marriage. This testimony, however, is frequently rejected on the grounds that the Christian church throughout history was misogynistic. Indeed, various statements that seem harsh or unfair toward the female sex are not hard to find. Perhaps the most notorious of these is Aristotle’s assertion that women are “misbegotten” or improperly formed, an assertion reaffirmed by Thomas Aquinas in several places.

While we should be willing to acknowledge gross errors and blind biases in church history, we also find a contrary testimony on this point. The normative Protestant tradition rejected the “traditional” definition of woman as malformed. More than this, in the history of Reformed theology, we also find the assertion that women are capable of true virtue and even political rule. Indeed, the Reformers and their heirs freely acknowledged that individual women often excel particular men in character and intellect, even their own husbands. They also condemned domestic abuse in the strongest of terms.

This fuller view of history is important because it shows the way in which a Christian tradition can maintain the scriptural doctrine of male headship while rejecting a philosophical notion of female deficiency. What emerges is a position similar to what we now refer to as complementarity. The theologians of the Reformation maintained that both men and women fully bear the image of God, are equally capable of virtue and spiritual graces, and yet are differently ordered in God’s good design. Due to the creation order, men and women have certain specific vocational directions and also make unique and essential contributions to both marriage and society. Instead of defining woman as a necessary evil, the Reformers defend woman as a most excellent work.

Against the ‘Deformed Man’

If you read Reformation commentaries on the book of Genesis or other treatments of the constitution of men and women, you will notice a peculiar line of argument that repeatedly shows up. When dealing with the creation of the woman, Protestant theologians go out of their way to show how the Scriptures refute the “pagan” and “vulgar” conception of the female sex. For instance, Martin Luther (1483–1546) writes,

This tale fits Aristotle’s designation of woman as a “maimed man”; others declare that she is a monster. But let them themselves be monsters and sons of monsters — these men who make malicious statements and ridicule a creature of God in which God Himself took delight as in a most excellent work, moreover, one which we see created by a special counsel of God. These pagan ideas show that reason cannot establish anything sure about God and the works of God but only thinks up reasons against reasons and teaches nothing in a perfect and sound manner.1

In his typically colorful prose, Luther is interacting with a longstanding conversation in classical biology and anthropology. Aristotle, as noted, had claimed that the woman was a “maimed” or deformed man. What he meant by this description strikes us as bizarre, as it has to do with the way he understood the mechanics of human reproduction and embryonic development. In short, Aristotle believed that all human life begins in one state of existence but possesses potential to develop into a more perfect state of existence. Those humans who activate this potency and move into the fully developed stage Aristotle classified as males, while those who remain in the initial stage were females. Various translations and restatements of Aristotle render his description of the woman as maimed, deformed, malformed, mutilated, or misbegotten.2

While contemporary readers will quickly reject Aristotle’s argument as based on an entirely false understanding of human physiology, Christian theologians in earlier times often gave Aristotle the benefit of the doubt. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is perhaps the chief example. Though he qualifies and relativizes the Aristotelian view to a point, Aquinas still considers it to be basically correct.3

The Reformers had no time for this discussion. Martin Luther finds Aristotle’s claim offensive and impious, an affront to the very majesty of God. In his treatise The Estate of Marriage, he attacks the ancient statement that woman is a “necessary evil”: “These are the words of blind heathen, who are ignorant of the fact that man and woman are God’s creation. They blaspheme his work, as if man and woman just came into being spontaneously!”4 John Calvin (1509–1564) also rejects the description of the female sex as a “necessary evil,” arguing, “The vulgar proverb, indeed, is, that she is a necessary evil; but the voice of God is rather to be heard, which declares that woman is given as a companion and an associate to the man, to assist him to live well.”5

While the later Reformed scholastics were frequently more friendly toward the Thomistic and Aristotelian heritage, they too stood firm on the question of the origin and constitution of woman. Andrew Willet (1562–1621) attacks “the Philosopher” (i.e., Aristotle) as “heathenish” and “profane” for asserting that women cannot possess virtue in the full and “proper” sense.6 Writing in 1676, Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676) says the notion that woman is an “error of nature” or an “imperfect male” is a “monstrous opinion that is refuted by Scripture and reason.”7 The overwhelming majority of Protestant theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries directly rejected the ancient position that the woman was deficient or malformed.

Upholding Hierarchy

While Reformation theologians rejected the notion that women were lesser creatures than men, they did not hesitate to use the language of hierarchy. In the relationship of marriage, the husband was said to be “superior” to the wife. To modern ears, this language may seem to parallel the position just rejected. But closer attention to the particulars reveals something different.

For example, John Davenant (1572–1641) writes, “The wife acknowledges in her mind, that her husband is and ought to be her head and governor, and that she is the inferior on the mere ground that she is a wife, although in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence, she excel her husband.”8 Notice that Davenant says that a wife might indeed “excel her husband” in birth, riches, virtue, and prudence. That is to say, she may be of nobler birth than her husband, she may come from greater riches than her husband, and she may be more virtuous and more prudent than her husband. (Davenant surely had met many such women in his career as a professor, priest, and bishop.)

The “inferiority” of the wife does not necessarily render her lesser in any of those areas. Instead, her inferiority is simply with regard to the marital relationship itself (“the mere ground that she is a wife”). The relationship of wife is like a rank or office, akin to that within an army or administration. Just a few sentences earlier, Davenant had compared this sort of hierarchy to that of magistrates or soldiers. The superiority and inferiority in view have to do with an order of authority in the specific organization, not with a difference of value, capability, or essence.

Another testimony to this perspective is Robert Leighton (1611–1684), a Reformed Scottish bishop writing in the late seventeenth century. He writes,

It is possible, that the wife may sometimes have the advantage of knowledge, either natural wit and judgment, or a great measure of understanding of spiritual things; but this still holds, that the husband is bound to improve the measure both of natural and of spiritual gifts, that he hath, or can attain to, and to apply them usefully to the ordering of his conjugal carriage, and that he understand himself obliged somewhat the more, in the very notion of a husband, both to seek after and to use that prudence which is peculiarly required for his due deportment. And a Christian wife, who is more largely endowed, yet will show all due respect to the measure of wisdom, though it be less, which is bestowed upon her husband.9

Again, we see that the wife is not presumed to be inferior to the husband in “natural wit and judgment,” nor even in the “understanding of spiritual things.” But the calling of authoritative leader nonetheless belongs to the husband because he is the husband. The authority is located within the “office” of husband; the duty to submit belongs to the wife because she is the wife.

Such a perspective is not substantially different from what we now call complementarity. The husband’s duty to lead and the wife’s duty to submit are based not upon an innate hierarchy of ability, capacity, or skill but rather upon the divine arrangement of husband and wife grounded in the creation order.

For the Regiment of Women

The magisterial Reformers were, on the whole, not revolutionary in their political thought. They did not promote a doctrine of liberation nor even the sort of social equality that we commonly understand today. Indeed, they frequently had to repel charges of promoting “radicalism” or political upheaval. Even arguments for political resistance were grounded in longstanding debates from classical antiquity, not any new breakthroughs in biblical exegesis.

Concerning women’s roles in public, the Reformers tended to assert traditional views. Women, for them, would generally hold a domestic position. But the controversy over England’s Queen Elizabeth gave occasion to reflect on the possibility of women holding the highest political offices. John Knox’s (c. 1514–1572) negative views on this topic are more well-known, but what several other Reformed thinkers had to say might be surprising.

John Calvin is usually considered to be a friendly associate (if not an ally) of Knox. Knox certainly wanted to maintain this impression, and it is likely that Calvin did indeed lend his support from time to time. Still, Calvin recognized the inconvenience that Knox could bring. In a 1559 letter to Sir William Cecil, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth, Calvin writes,

Two years ago, John Knox in a private conversation, asked my opinion respecting female government. I frankly answered that because it was a deviation from the primitive and established order of nature, it ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction of his rights just like slavery.

Calvin is clearly not a progressive thinker on this question. “Nevertheless,” Calvin goes on, he also told Knox that

certain women had sometimes been so gifted that the singular blessing of God was conspicuous in them, and made it manifest that they had been raised up by the providence of God, either because he willed by such examples to condemn the inactivity of men, or thus show more distinctly his own glory. I here instanced Huldah and Deborah. I added to the same effect that God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church, which clearly distinguished such persons from private women.10

This section of the letter is not exactly inspirational prose. Calvin does not muster any kind of “trumpet blast” of his own, and he was wholly unsuccessful in his attempt to move into the queen’s good favor. Still, his admission is important. For him, while female magistrates are a “deviation from the order of nature,” they are not so unnatural as to be illegitimate in their rule. Indeed, in God’s providence, certain women rulers had been successful. In fact, Calvin argues that Isaiah had prophesied that women would be godly rulers (Isaiah 49:23), implying that Elizabeth is one of their number.

Voetius also offers a moderate perspective on female government, writing that “in the case of extreme necessity,” and upon the discovery of a woman possessing the necessary prudence, bravery, and spirit, “I think that such should be employed for a time.”11 Willet is even more supportive, writing in defense of “the regiment of women”:

The spirit of God can plant grace and virtue in the hearts of women, as well as of men: nay often the Lord chooses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty things, 1. Cor. 1.27. And the examples of so many virtuous and good women in the Scriptures, of Sara, Rebecca, Anna, the Shunamite, and the rest in the old: of Marie, Anna, Martha, Lydia, Dorcas, and many other in the New Testament, do evidently confute that prophane paradox of the Philosopher.

He adds a personal reflection regarding England’s own experience:

This country and nation of ours, as is hath found the government of a woman the worst, in the late Marian persecutions, when more good men and women, Saints of God, were put to death, than in any three Kings reign beside: so have we seen it in the next change, the best of all other Princes reigns that went before: famous Queene Elizabeth’s government, as for flourishing peace, honourable fame and name, enriching of the Land, subduing of foreign enemies, enacting of good laws, may be compared with the reign of any former Kings. So for the advancing of true religion, increasing of learning, propagating the Gospel, none of her predecessors came near her: That as the refining of coin, being reduced from base money to pure silver and gold, was her honour in the Civil State: so the purging of religion, according to the purity of the word of God, in the Church shall bee her everlasting fame in the world, and is her eternal reward with God.12

A final example is Johannes Althusius (1563–1638), one of the most important political thinkers of the post-Reformation era and a key forerunner to modern politics as we know it. In his 1614 work Politica, Althusius endorses the rule of women in provincial government, citing Deborah from the book of Judges, Nitocris of Babylon, Zenobia of Palmyra, Amalasuintha of the Goths, and “Elizabeth of the Britons.” He writes, “In this matter, the female sex does not stand in the way.”13 Althusius is especially noteworthy for his stature in political theory and in the fact that he does not use the typical qualification of extreme necessity, but merely “when the function is appropriate.”

The Grave Sin of Domestic Abuse

Another important area where the Reformation combatted misogynistic behavior was in its condemnation of domestic abuse. The second Anglican Book of Homilies has a homily titled “Of the State of Matrimony,” which contains an extended discussion of spousal abuse. It says that for a man to beat his wife is “the greatest shame that can be, not so much to her that is beaten, as to him that does the deed.” It even refers to classical “pagan” law to argue that domestic abuse can be a ground for ending a marriage:

This thing may be well understood by the laws which the Panims have made, which does discharge her any longer to dwell with such an husband, as unworthy to have any further company with her that does smite her. For it is an extreme point, thus so vilely to entreat her like a slave, that is fellow to thee of thy life, and so joined unto thee before time in the necessary matters of thy living. And therefore a man may well liken such a man (if he may be called a man, rather then a wild beast) to a killer of his father or his mother.14

Davenant echoes this same argument in his commentary on Colossians, where he writes,

It is the height of this bitter tyranny to act cruelly towards the wife by stripes or blows, which we do not read that any one among the heathen did unless he was drunk or mad. Hence the civil law permits the wife to avail herself of a divorce if she can prove that her husband has beaten her: and it gives as a reason that blows are foreign to a state of freedom. For no superiority whatever gives the power of coercing the inferior by blows.

He adds:

For although parents often chastise their children from love; yet both the experience and conscience of everyone will testify that no one proceeds to beat his wife except from anger, bitterness or hatred; all which are unlawful things and diametrically opposite to the matrimonial state.

Davenant explains that the husband does not have the authority to use physical violence against his wife because the marriage is not a master-slave relationship but instead “a certain amicable fellowship in life.” The wife is “subject to her husband and directed by him; but as a companion, not as a slave; by advice, not by stripes.”15

In the same vein, Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) says, “A husband’s power over his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotick.” He explains that the husband must lead by love through counsel, instruction, and nurture. “The power a man hath is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice.”16 To be an effective leader, the husband must actually lead. He must assume responsibility and carry out the duties of a loving and friendly family leader. On this point, Taylor gives a sort of proverb: “It is a sign of impotency and weakness to force the camels to kneel for their load because thou has not spirit and strength enough to climb.”

Against physical violence in the marriage, Taylor cites Marcus Aurelius, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom. The husband, he asserts, should never strike his wife. “The Marital Love is infinitely removed from all possibility of such rudeness.”17

Perfectly Complementary

These observations do not establish any sort of proto-feminism or egalitarianism within the Reformation tradition. Rather, a fundamental human equality was said to coexist within a stipulated hierarchy — the husband’s loving governance over his wife, which established the basic paradigm for relationships of authority and submission. Still, the Reformers were well aware of areas of historic abuse and error in the tradition. Based upon Scripture and reason, they maintained the woman’s full integrity as a good creature of God, capable of virtue and even public rule. They argued that the woman’s strength could shine in and through her relative temporal weakness, all to the manifest power, wisdom, and glory of God.

What is commonly referred to as complementarity is sometimes opposed to the older “patriarchal” tradition. At times, this is done by complementarians themselves; at other times, their opponents insist on the discontinuity so as to deny the authority of the historic Christian witness. But the difference is not a fundamental or essential one. While certain terminology has changed and particular categories have become more or less familiar, the basic structure remains. While God has ordered men and women differently, in such a way as to complement and perfect one another according to his calling, both men and women are equally human, originally good according to God’s design, and worthy of love, respect, and justice.

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