section_path: Philosophical perspectives/Post-classical history/By gender/Women
section_name: Women
paragraph_text: Women
  
  Scholars posted that females were seen by authors in the Middle Ages to be more phlegmatic (cold and wet) than males, meaning females were more sedentary and passive than males. Women's passive nature appeared "natural" due to their lack of power when compared to men. Aristotle identified traits he believed women shared: female, feminine, passive, focused on matter, inactive, and inferior. Thus medieval women were supposed to act submissively toward men and relinquish control to their husbands. Hildegard of Bingen believed women were fully capable of anger. While most women were phlegmatic, individual women under certain circumstances could also be choleric.