Here is a very small collection of sources showing the universal testimony of the Church that Scripture teaches woman as woman is subject to man as man, and this distinction of the sexes should everywhere and all times be affirmed (if not so easily observed):
Chrysostom’s homilies on Genesis:
"For this cause was woman put under your power and you were pronounced lord over her, that she should obey you, and that the head should not follow the feet.”
"Because you left him, of whose nature you were participant, and for whom you were formed, and have had pleasure to have familiarity with that wicked beast, and would take his [Satan’s] counsel; therefore I subject you to man, and I appoint and affirm him to be your lord, that you may acknowledge his dominion; and because you could not bear rule, learn well to be ruled.”
Chrysostom’s homilies on Ephesians:
"That not withstanding that men be degenerate, yet may not women usurp any authority above them. …These things I do not speak to extol them, but to the confusion and shame of ourselves, and to admonish us to take again the dominion that is meet and convenient for us; not only that power which is according to the excellency of dignity, but that which is according to providence, and according to help and virtue; for then is the body in best proportion when it has the best governor.”
Chrysostom on 1Corinthians 11:3:
"But woman ought to be covered, to witness that in earth she had a head, that is man.”
Chrysostom homilies on Titus:
"Woman was not made for this, O man, to be prostituted as common. O ye subverters of all decency, who use men, as if they were women, and lead out women to war, as if they were men! This is the work of the devil, to subvert and confound all things, to overleap the boundaries that have been appointed from the beginning, and remove those which God has set to nature. For God assigned to woman the care of the house only, to man the conduct of public affairs. But you reduce the head to the feet, and raise the feet to the head. You suffer women to bear arms, and are not ashamed.”
Ambrose, on 1Timothy:
"Woman ought not only to have simple arrayment, but all authority is to be denied unto her. For she must be in subjection to man (of whom she has taken her origin), as well in habit as in service.”
Jerome, Hexaemeron :
"Adam was deceived by Eve, and not Eve by Adam, and therefore it is just, that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom she called to sin, lest that again she slide and fall by womanly facility.”
Jerome, on Ephesians:
"Women are commanded to be subject to men by the law of nature, because man is the author or beginner of the woman: for as Christ is the head of the church, so is man of the woman. From Christ the church took beginning, and therefore it is subject unto him; even so did woman take beginning from man that she should be subject.”
Augustine, Against Faustus :
“Woman… is subject to man, and has none authority, neither to teach, neither to be witness, neither to judge, much less to rule or bear empire…"
“Woman compared to other creatures, is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them. But compared unto man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him…”
“The woman shall be subject to man as unto Christ.”
John Calvin, on Seventh Commandment:
"This decree also commends modesty in general, and in it God anticipates the danger, lest women should harden themselves into forgetfulness of modesty, or men should degenerate into effeminacy unworthy of their nature. Garments are not in themselves of so much importance; but as it is disgraceful for men to become effeminate, and also for women to affect manliness in their dress and gestures, propriety and modesty are prescribed, not only for decency’s sake, but lest one kind of liberty should at length lead to something worse. The words of the heathen poet (Juvenal) are very true: 'What shame can she, who wears a helmet, show, Her sex deserting?’”
John Calvin, on Genesis 3:
“…the craftiness of Satan betrays itself in this, that he does not directly assail the man, but approaches him, as through a mine, in the person of his wife. …Thus the woman, who had
perversely exceeded her proper bounds, is forced back to her own position."
John Calvin, sermons on Deuteronomy:
"For it is good reason that there should be a difference between men and women. …when women go appareled like men of war, (as there be some which had leave to bear a hackbutte [an ancient firearm] on their shoulder than a distaffe in their hand) it is against kinde, and we ought to abhor it…. I have told you already that all the laws which are written here concern manners and are rules of good life, and are to be referred to the Ten Commandments. For God hath not added anything to those ten sentences… As how? For in forbidding adultery, God not only forbids the act itself, which were punishable and worthy of reproach even before men; but also he forbids in effect all unchaste behavior, so as none may appear, neither in apparel nor in any part of our conversation… which mischief to eschew, both men and women must have a care to follow every of them their own vocation…”
John Calvin, Institutes I:15:4:
"As to that passage of St. Paul, (1 Corinthians 11:7) in which the man alone to the express exclusion of the woman, is called the image and glory of God, it is evident from the context, that it merely refers to civil order.”
John Calvin, commentary on 1Corinthians 11:7-10:
"The simple solution is this—that he does not treat here of innocence and holiness, which are equally becoming in men and women, but of the distinction, which God has conferred upon the man, so as to have superiority over the woman. In this superior order of dignity the glory of God is seen, as it shines forth in every kind of superiority. The woman is the glory of the man. There is no doubt that the woman is a distinguished ornament of the man; for it is a great honor that God has appointed her to the man as the partner of his life, and a helper to him, and has made her subject to him as the body is to the head. For what Solomon affirms as to a careful wife—that she is a crown to her husband, is true of the whole sex, if we look to the appointment of God, which Paul here commends, showing that the woman was created for this purpose—that she might be a distinguished ornament of the man….
"For the man is not from the woman. He establishes by two arguments the pre-eminence, which he had assigned to men above women. The first is, that as the woman derives her origin from the man, she is therefore inferior in rank. The second is, that as the woman was created for the sake of the man, she is therefore subject to him, as the work ultimately produced is to its cause. That the man is the beginning of the woman and the end for which she was made, is evident from the law. It is not good for a man to be alone. Let us make for him, etc. Farther, God took one of Adam’s ribs and formed Eve….
"It is asked, whether he speaks of married women exclusively, for there are some that restrict to them what Paul here teaches, on the ground that it does not belong to virgins to be under the authority of a husband. It is however a mistake, for Paul looks beyond this — to God’s eternal law, which has made the female sex subject to the authority of men. On this account all women are born, that they may acknowledge themselves inferior in consequence of the superiority of the male sex.”
John Calvin, commentary on 1Timothy 2:11ff.:
“But I suffer not a woman to teach.” Not that he takes from them the charge of instructing their family, but only excludes them from the office of teaching, which God has committed to men only. On this subject we have explained our views in the exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. If any one bring forward, by way of objection, Deborah and others of the same class, of whom we read that they were at one time appointed by the command of God to govern the people, the answer is easy. Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which he intended that we should be bound. Accordingly, if women at one time held the office of prophets and teachers, and that too when they were supernaturally called to it by the Spirit of God, He who is above all law might do this; but, being a peculiar case, this is not opposed to the constant and ordinary system of government. He adds—what is closely allied to the office of teaching—and not to assume authority over the man; for the very reason, why they are forbidden to teach, is, that it is not permitted by their condition. They are subject, and to teach implies the rank of power or authority. Yet it may be thought that there is no great force in this argument; because even prophets and teachers are subject to kings and to other magistrates. I reply, there is no absurdity in the same person commanding and likewise obeying, when viewed in different relations. But this does not apply to the case of woman, who by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for gunaikokrati (the government of women) has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing; and, therefore, so to speak, it will be a mingling of heaven and earth, if women usurp the right to teach. Accordingly, he bids them be ‘quiet,’ that is, keep within their own rank."
“For Adam was first created.” He assigns two reasons why women ought to be subject to men; because not only did God enact this law at the beginning, but he also inflicted it as a punishment on the woman. He accordingly shews that, although mankind had stood in their first and original uprightness, the true order of nature, which proceeded from the command of God, bears that women shall be subject….
“Yet the reason that Paul assigns, that woman was second in the order of creation… Moses shews that the woman was created afterwards, in order that she might be a kind of appendage to the man; and that she was joined to the man on the express condition, that she should be at hand to render obedience to him. Since, therefore, God did not create two chiefs of equal power, but added to the man an inferior aid, the Apostle justly reminds us of that order of creation in which the eternal and inviolable appointment of God is strikingly displayed.”
John Calvin, letters:
“Two years ago, John Knox in a private conversation, asked my opinion respecting female government. I frankly answered that because it was a deviation from the primitive and established order of nature, it ought to be held as a judgment on man for his dereliction of his rights just like slavery—that nevertheless certain women had sometimes been so gifted that the singular blessing of God was conspicuous in them, and made it manifest that they had been raised up by the providence of God, either because He willed by such examples to condemn the supineness of men, or thus show more distinctly His own glory. I here instanced Huldah and Deborah.” John Calvin, “Letter DXXXVIII to William Cecil” in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, ed. Henry Beveridge & Jules Bonnet, vol. 7, (Philadelphia, 1860), p. 46.
John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet :
The entire book is an exposition of the doctrine. John Calvin declares his agreement with Knox’s overall premise in several of the texts above. The classical treatment of this subject by a Reformed theologian, Knox’s work should be read. [editors note: better copy now available here]
We could multiply sources documenting this universal witness, but the above will suffice for men of good will. It is true that the past few decades have seen seminary professors and the pastors they train entirely repudiating this doctrine of Scripture and all our fathers who faithfully passed it on. Still, until the second half of the twentieth century, the witness remained across the church as it was in the Early Church and Reformation period.
How to live and work in a world which has thoroughly repudiated God’s Order of Creation is another, and much more conflicted, question partly because whereas we have the authority to observe proper authority in the church and the home, we have no such authority in the civil realm. Therefore we must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, seeking counsel from one another and teaching the souls under our care to be wise in their words and witness.
Love,
