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The Malleus Maleficarum and the Politics of Misogyny, Medicine, and Midwifery (1484-Present): a Feminist Historical Inquiry

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The Malleus Maleficarum and the Politics of Misogyny, Medicine, and Midwifery (1484-Present): a Feminist Historical Inquiry "...And He Shall Rule Over Thee" The Malleus Maleficarum and the Politics of Misogyny, Medicine, and Midwifery (1484-Present): A Feminist Historical Inquiry by Randeep Singh Chauhan THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In the School of Criminology O Randeep Singh Chauhan, 2005 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2005 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means without permission of the author. Approval Name: Randeep Singh Chauhan Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis: ". ..And He Shall Rule Over Thee" The Malleus Malefcarum and the Politics of Misogyny, Medicine, and Midwifery (1484-Present): A Feminist Historical Inquiry Examining Committee: Chair: Prof. Neil Boyd Professor, School of Criminology Dr. Brian Burtch Senior Supervisor Professor, School of Criminology Dr. Elizabeth Elliott Supervisor Assistant Professor, School of Criminology Dr. F. Douglas Cousineau Supervisor Associate Professor [Retired], School of Criminology Dr. Jude Kornelsen External Examiner Assistant Clinical Professor, Family Practice University of British Columbia Date Approved: 70~7~ SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENCE The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. The author has further granted permission to Simon Fraser University to keep or make a digital copy for use in its circulating collection. The author has further agreed that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by either the author or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.\ Permission for public performance, or limited permission for private scholarly use, of any multimedia materials forming part of this work, may have been granted by the author. This information may be found on the separately catalogued multimedia material and in the signed Partial Copyright Licence. The original Partial Copyright Licence attesting to these terms, and signed by this author, may be found in the original bound copy of this work, retained in the Simon Fraser University Archive. W. A. C. Bennett Library Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada Abstract Despite shifts towards "secularism" in the Western world, women have consistently been the target of negative sentiment due to their historically and theologically-rooted subordination to men. This thesis articulates feminist historical research methodologies which are applied to the Malleus Malejicarum ("The Hammer of the Witches"), a legal code of the Roman Catholic Inquisition. An examination of the dialectical relationship between ideology and culture in Medieval Europe progresses into a discussion of the evolution of medical, sociological, and criminological thought to contextualize strug- gles in the contemporary regulation of midwifery in Canada. When viewed through a historical feminist lens, the barriers to midwifery practice become a microcosm of the gender struggle in Western society, in which men have defined and classified women as "abnormal" and deviant, and systematically excluded their voices from religious, aca- demic, and medical enterprise. Essentially, this thesis systematically places a contempo- rary social issue into historical and social context. Table of Contents .. Approval ....................................................................................................................... 11 ... Abstract.......................................................................................................................... 111 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... iv .. Dedication ..................................................................................................................... vii ... Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ Preface: "In the Beginning ..." ....................................................................................... 1 The Midwife Microcosm .............................................................................................. 5 Looking at the "Big Picture" ......................................................................................... 5 Central Questions .......................................................................................................... 7 Original Contributions of the Thesis ............................................................................. 7 Chapter 1: Operationalization....................................................................................... 9 Towards a Sociological Perspective on Religion .......................................................... 9 A Comparative Cultural Historical Inquiry ................................................................. 15 Hermeneutics ........................................................................................................... 16 Document Analysis .............................................................................................. 16 The Master Umbrella: Architectonics ................................................................... 17 Crossan: A Case Study of Comparative Cultural Historical Inquiry .......................... 18 Conceptualizing Gender in Male Dominated Discourse ............................................. 19 Moving Towards Feminist History ............................................................................. 21 The Dominance of Male Perspectives in Academic Discourse ............................... 21 Multidisciplinarity and Feminism ........................................................................... 24 Feminism and the Study of Religion ....................................................................... 25 One Last Thought: the Nature of History .................................................................... 26 Caveats on Textual Analysis ....................................................................................... 29 A Note on the Framework of This Thesis ................................................................... 29 Chapter 2: The Hunts ...................................................................................................31 The Women's Holocaust ............................................................................................. 31 How Many Witches Were Killed? .............................................................................. 32 Who Were the Witches? .......................................................................................... 33 Gender ................................................................................................................... 33 Age ........................................................................................................................ 33 Marital Status .......................................................................................................... 34 Social/Economic Status ........................................................................................ 34 Personality ........................................................................................................... 34 What's Behind the Demographics ............................................................................... 35 What is a Moral Panic? ............................................................................................ 35 Criminal Law and Moral Panics .............................................................................. 38 The Development of Church's Position ...................................................................... 39 The Birth of the Malleus MaleJicarum ........................................................................ 4 1 What Constitutes Witchcraft? .................................................................................... 42 The Theological Debate Surrounding Women ........................................................... 43 The Bible: " . ..and he shall rule over thee" .............................................................43 The Scholars: "The sentence of God" .................................................................... 45 The Commissioning of Kramer and Sprenger ......................................................... 46 The Structure of the Malleus ................................................................................... 47 The Malleus: "...an evil of nature, painted with fair colours!" ............................... 48 Sexuality ................................................................................................................... 49 Revenge, Ambition, and Deceit ............................................................................... 50 Domestic Roles ....................................................................................................... 52 Satan's Pawns .......................................................................................................... 53
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