Opposition to women's rights

Then I wonder a woman, the Mistress of Hearts, / Would descend to aspire to be Master of Arts. ~ George Whyte-Melville

Opposition to women's rights is opposition to extending certain legal rights or social privileges to women. In a modern context, the term antifeminism is often used.

Quotes

• Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
  • Genesis 3:16 (KJV)

• To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.
  In the probation of this proposition, I will not be so curious as to gather whatsoever may amplify, set forth, or decore the same; but I am purposed, even as I have spoken my conscience in most plain and few words, so to stand content with a simple proof of every member, bringing in for my witness God's ordinance in nature, his plain will revealed in his word, and the minds of such as be most ancient amongst godly writers.
  And first, where that I affirm the empire of a woman to be a thing repugnant to nature, I mean not only that God by the order of his creation hath spoiled woman of authority and dominion, but also that man hath seen, proved and pronounced just causes why that it should be. Man, I say, in many other cases blind, doth in this behalf see very clearly. For the causes be so manifest, that they cannot be hid. For who can deny but it repugneth to nature that the blind shall be appointed to lead and conduct such as do see? That the weak, the sick, and impotent persons shall nourish and keep the whole and strong, and finally, that the foolish, mad and phrenetic shall govern the discreet and give counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be all women, compared unto man in bearing of authority. For their sight in civil regiment is but blindness, their strength weakness, their counsel foolishness, and judgement frenzy, if it be rightly considered.
  I except such as God, by singular privilege, and for certain causes known only to himself, hath exempted from the common rank of women, and do speak of women as nature and experience do this day declare them. Nature, I say, doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish; and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which not only they have removed women from rule and authority, but also some have thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy of all public office. . .
• I am not ignorant that the subtle wits of carnal men (which can never be brought under the obedience of God's simple precepts to maintain this monstrous empire) have yet two vain shifts. First, they allege that, albeit women may not absolutely reign by themselves, because they may neither sit in judgement, neither pronounce sentence, neither execute any public office, yet may they do all such things by their lieutenants, deputies and judges substitute. Secondarily, say they, a woman born to rule over any realm may choose her a husband, and to him she may transfer and give her authority and right. To both I answer in few words. First, that from a corrupt and venomed fountain can spring no wholesome water. Secondarily that no person hath power to give the thing which doth not justly appertain to themselves. But the authority of a woman is a corrupted fountain, and therefore from her can never spring any lawful officer. She is not born to rule over men, and therefore she can appoint none by her gift, nor by her power (which she hath not), to the place of a lawful magistrate.
  • John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstruous Regiment of Women (1558)

• Yet without a degree see how well the Sex knows
  How to bind up our wounds and to lighten our woes!
  They need no Doctor's gown their fair limbs to enwrap,
  They need ne'er hide their locks in a Graduate's cap.
  Then I wonder a woman, the Mistress of Hearts,
  Would descend to aspire to be Master of Arts:
  A Ministering Angel in Woman we see,
  And an Angel should covet no other Degree.
  • "O Why Should a Woman Not Get a Degree?",
    George Whyte-Melville, Songs and Verses (1869), p. 76.

See also

• Women's rights
• Misogyny