Jerry Seinfeld used to have a routine about the television commercials for laundry detergents that promise the product will remove bloodstains from clothing. "I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with bloodstains all over it," Seinfeld would say, "maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem."
It’s a funny line, and it’s one that only a man could think of, because the real reason blood is such a vexing and eternal laundry problem doesn’t have to do with gunshot wounds or serial shaving mishaps (in the commercials, a witless husband is forever nicking himself shaving, usually wearing his best white shirt, the male equivalent of showering in your bra and panties). Bloodstains occur and recur in households because women spend a lot of their lives bleeding. If a man or a child woke up in a small pool of blood, the alarm would be genuine and well-founded. But if a woman does so, it’s business as usual.
—Caitlin Flanagan, from "The Sanguine Sex: Abortion and the Bloodiness of Being Female," in The Atlantic, May, 2007.
Long before the contemporary application of the term "temperamental" to describe women (and, not incidentally, children), there was the reign of Medieval Theory in Europe. Human beings are, by some philosophies, mythopoetic (myth-making), and will create explanations for that which is not understood—hence, creation myths.
Many creation myths, of course, were formed within indigenous cultures. By the time Medieval Theory held sway in Europe, a confluence of science, religion, and superstition had become melded into what then served as philosophy. Think now, when a woman (or child) is called "temperamental," about the original meanings of these words, provided here.
These are the ironies of etymology and epistemology investigated in my "Four Humors" series: in each collection of four photos, there is investigated the "moods" associated with "humors"—what it is, for a woman to be sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic of body, facial expression, and mind.
I thank Altaira, Ilysse, and Rebecca, for their contributions these works.
temperament
c.1412, "proportioned mixture of elements," from L. temperamentum "proper mixture," from temperare "to mix" (see temper).
In medieval theory, it meant a combination of qualities (hot, cold, moist, dry) that determined the nature of an organism; this was extended to a combination of the four humors (sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic) that made up a person's characteristic disposition. General sense of "habit of mind, natural disposition" is from 1821. Temperamental "of or pertaining to temperament" is from 1646; in the sense of "moody" it is recorded from 1907.
from the Etymology Dictionary
sanguine
1319, 'type of red cloth,' from O.Fr. sanguin (fem. sanguine), from L. sanguineus 'of blood,' also 'bloody, bloodthirsty,' from sanguis (gen. sanguinis) 'blood' (see sanguinary). Meaning 'blood-red' is recorded from 1382. Meaning 'cheerful, hopeful, confident' first attested 1509, since these qualities were thought in medieval physiology to spring from an excess of blood as one of the four humors.
choleric (adj.)
mid-14c., colrik, 'bilious of temperament or complexion,' from O.Fr. colerique, from L.L. cholericus, from Gk. kholerikos (see choler). Meaning 'easily angered, hot-tempered' is from 1580s (from the supposed effect of excess choler); that of 'pertaining to cholera' is from 1834.
phlegm
1387, fleem 'viscid mucus' (the stuff itself and also regarded as a bodily humor), from O.Fr. fleume (13c., Fr. flegme), from L.L. phlegma, from Gk. phlegma 'inflammation, heat, humor caused by heat,' from phlegein 'to burn,' related to phlox (gen. phlogos) 'flame, blaze,' from PIE base bhleg- 'to burn, be hot' (cf. Skt. bhrajate 'shines,' L. fulgere 'to shine,' fulmen 'lightning,' flagrare 'to burn;' see black). Modern form is attested from c.1660. The 'cold, moist' humor of the body, in medieval physiology, it was believed to cause apathy.
melancholy (n.)
c.1303, 'condition characterized by sullenness, gloom, irritability,' from O.Fr. melancholie, from L.L. melancholia, from Gk. melankholia 'sadness,' lit. 'black bile,' from melas (gen. melanos) 'black' (see melanin) + khole 'bile' (see Chloe). Medieval physiology attributed depression to excess of 'black bile,' a secretion of the spleen and one of the body's four 'humors.' Adj. sense of 'sullen, gloomy' is from 1526; sense of 'deplorable' (of a fact or state of things) is from 1710.
