Women are more likely to become witches than men
Kramer’s revolting misogyny is so great that even he feels the need to explain why most of his examples of ‘real’ witchcraft concern women, rather than men. Part I, Question 6, represents a litany of misogynistic commentary from sources as diverse as the Bible, Classical Literature, and the Church Fathers, to back-up Kramer’s evident disgust at the state of women. Although a brief passage describes women who ‘have brought beatitude to men, and have saved nations, lands, and cities’, Kramer argues that the natural inferiority of women to men makes them far more liable to become witches.
Women, according to Kramer, are far more foolish than men. Quoting Seneca, he does not even think they are capable of successfully operating alone: ‘when a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil’. Thus, they are easy targets for the legions of hell: ‘they are more credulous; and since the chief aim of the devil is to corrupt faith, therefore he rather attacks them’. Most dangerously, given the obligation to recruit more witches for Satan, ‘they have slippery tongues, and are unable to conceal from the fellow-women those things which by evil arts they know’.
The fairer sex is described as inherently evil, which is traced back to Eve, ‘the first temptress’, and the Forbidden Fruit. Even the appearance of women infuriates Kramer: ‘let us consider also her gait, posture, and habit, in which is vanity of vanities… there is no man in the world who studies so hard to please the good God as even an ordinary woman studies by her vanities to please men’. ‘As she is a liar by nature’, a woman will lead men astray: ‘they kill [men] by emptying their purses, consuming their strength, and causing them to forsake God’.
Most of all, women are naturally more carnal, and obsessed with sex. According to the historian Anne Barstow, one-fifth of the Malleus constitutes ‘a tirade against women’s sexual powers’. ‘All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable’, fumes Kramer. Using Proverbs 30, he states that ‘the mouth of the womb… is never satisfied’, equating maternal desire with sexual impropriety, and concluding that ‘for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils’. Hence, women are easy targets for the devil, and make the most effective instruments for carrying out his evil.
