Aristotle’s gendered form-over-matter hierarchy legitimated male household rule

Evidence

Aristotelian philosophy, while unifying matter and form in each individual being, associated activity with maleness and passivity with femaleness. Form reigned superior over dead, passive matter. Socially, Aristotle found the basis for male rule over the household in the analogy that, as the soul ruled the body, so reason and deliberation, characteristic of men, should rule the appetites supposedly predominant in women. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 107

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the polyad’s law/institutions and ecofeminist thread: the household analogy later grounds state and cosmos hierarchies. — connects to: The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given; The institution of inheritance causally produced woman’s subordination to man’s property — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 182; The ordoliberal Ordo concept legitimized a hierarchical social order as natural and irrevocable — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 510 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The body-as-metaphor legitimated social hierarchy as naturally given #expands (0.85)
• Aristotle rationalized slavery through a theory of congenital and heritable difference #expands (0.82) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 509
• Patriarchal marriage domesticated feminine cosmic power into lawful order #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 367
• Aristotle defined the female body as a defective male #expands (0.78) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 108
• The institution of inheritance causally produced woman’s subordination to man’s property #qualifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 182
• The ordoliberal Ordo concept legitimized a hierarchical social order as natural and irrevocable #responds-to (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 510