women's intelligence

[Georg von Simson]

 Edwin Bryant asks:
>       My query is whether there is any indication in the Sanskritic
>tradition (at any historical point) that the actual intelligence
>itself--the cognitive faculty--of women was considered inferior to men's
>(as opposed to the *focus* of the intelligence or the social or cultural
>realm within which it was applied). In other words, regardless of social
>circumstance, whether women's buddhi, or dhii, or praj~naa was a priori,
>constitutionally and inherently considered to be inferior or lesser than a
>man's.

There is that nice story in the MahAvastu (ed. Senart, Vol. 3, p. 398 ff.)
about a parivrAjikA (female ascetic wanderer) who gets engaged in a debate
with a learned brahmin. The debate is going on for a whole week, and none
is superior to the other. In the end, she is defeated by her own free will,
because she has fallen in love with him (and he with her). Here it is quite
clear that the general expectation is that he must win, because men are
expected to be more intelligent than women and it would be a shame for him
to be defeated by a woman: (p. 392, l. 11 ff.) anAzcaryaM ca bhaveya yad
aham etAM parivrAjikAM nigRhNeyaM vadentsuH kim atrAzcaryaM yaM puruSeNa
strI nigRhItA ti / atha khalu yaM eSA parivrAjikA mama nigRhNeyA tato haM
sarvalokasya kutsito ca paribhUto ca bhaveyaM dvyangulaprajnAye strImAtrAye
tvaM nigRhIto tti.
 (I.B.Horner translates: It would not be strange if I were to defeat this
female Wanderer. Men would only say, 'What is there wonderful in a woman
being defeated by a man?' But if the female Wanderer were to defeat me,
then I should be reviled and despised by the whole crowd, and men would say
to me, 'you have been defeated by a mere woman's two-inch wit.')
   So, even if she was a parivrAjikA and had enjoyed a special education,
it was expected that she - as a woman - hat no more than a 'two-inch wit'!

Best regards

   Georg v. Simson