An Homily of the State of Matrimony (1563)

St. Paul expresseth it in the form of words: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord; for the husband is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church.” Here you understand that God hath commanded that ye should acknowledge the authority of the husband and refer to him the honor of obedience. And St. Peter saith in that same place afore rehearsed that “Holy matrons did sometimes deck themselves, not with gold and silver, but in putting their whole hope in God” and in “obeying their husbands, as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you be” (saith he) “if you follow her example.” This sentence is very meet for women to print in their remembrance.

Aristotle, Historia Animalium, translated by Richard Cresswell (4th c. BC):

And in all animals in which there is a distinction of the sexes nature has given a similar disposition to the males and to the females. This is most conspicuous in man, and the larger animals, and in viviparous quadrupeds; for the disposition of the female is softer, and more tameable and submissive, and more ingenious; as the females of the Lacedemonian dog are more gentle than the males ....

The females of all animals are less violent in their passions than the males, except the female bear and pardalis [panther], for the female of these appears more courageous than the male. In other animals the females are more soft and insidious, less simple, more petulant, and more active in the care of their young. The disposition of the males is opposed to this; for they are more passionate and fierce, more straightforward, and less invidious. The vestiges of these dispositions exist, as we may say, in all, but are more conspicuous in those which have the strongest moral habits, and most of all in mankind; for the nature of the human subject is the most complete, so that these habits appear more conspicuous in mankind than ir other animals.

Wherefore women are more compassionate and more readily made to weep, more jealous and querulous, more fond of railing, and more contentious The female also is more subject to depression of spirits and despair than the male. She is also more shameless and false, more readily deceived, and more mindful of injury, more watchful, more idle, and on the whole less excitable than the male. On the contrary, the male is more ready to help, and, as it hath been said, more brave than the female; and . . . if the sepia [cuttlefish] is struck with a trident, the male comes to help the female, but the female makes her escape if the male is struck.

John Knox, "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women," 1558:

Nature, I say, doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish, and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which not only they have removed women from rule and auhority, but also some have thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy of all public office.