Note 43 — Chapter I

It was Peter Lombard, whose Sentences "became the very canon of orthodoxy for all succeeding ages," who, in marked contrast with those of ancient and modern times that regarded woman as the inferior or slave of man, asserted her equality with him in a sentence that should be written in letters of gold. "Woman," he declares, Sententiarum, Lib. II, Disp. 18, "was not taken from the head of man, for she was not intended to be his ruler, nor from his foot, for she was not intended to be his slave, but from his side, for she was intended to be his companion and comfort."

In this view the great Schoolman but follows the teachings of St. Augustine. For in his commentary, De Genesi ad Litteram, Lib. 9, Cap. 13, the learned bishop of Hippo writes: "Quia igitur viro nec domina nec ancilla parabatur, sed socia, nec de capite, nec de pedibus, sed de latere fuerat producenda, ut juxta se producendam cognosceret, quam de suo latere sumptam didecisset." Again the same illustrious doctor declares that woman was formed from man's side in order that it might be manifest that she was created to be united with him in love—in consortium creabatur dilectionis.