When faced with the misery of the poor, the Church turned to the dogma that experience in this world is fleeting and unimportant. But there was a double standard at work, for the Church was not against medical care for the upper class. Kings and nobles had their court physicians who were men, sometimes even priests. The real issue was control: Male upper class healing under the auspices of the Church was acceptable, female healing as part of a peasant underclass was not.(13)If women were the peasant healers and their rebellion against the Church represented a "peasant rebellion," then this must also have been a rebellion of women against the established norms of patriarchal society (Ehrenreich and English 15). The practice of medicine by women was a threat to the Church because medicine contained the power over life and death, a power belonging to God alone, and delegated to his male representatives on earth. The clergy saw the faith that the peasants placed in these female healers and recognized the need to denigrate their practices (Ehrenreich and English 11-12).
Not surprisingly, the Devil and his agents could be expected to attack the very organs upon which men's superiority supposedly rested. The disappearance of the male members, the inability to perform sexually, or even concern for the size of the parish priest's members testify to the significance of the phallus in establishing the rule of God the Father.(168).A major sexual function of women that made them a target was menstruation. In tribal societies menstruation played a key role in the religious initiation rituals of women. Menstruation was a sign of a woman's maturity, just as menopause was an indication of the wisdom associated with old age. In patriarchal Europe, women's rituals in general were suppressed, but rituals that helped women to understand their monthly cycles were intimidating to this culture, which advocated the repression of sexual ideas (Redgrove, and Shuttle 228-233).