 In The Nobility Marinella argues that there is a feminine nature that is different from, and superior to, masculine nature. It was a commonplace that a person was called to a certain office in life by God; the nobility of a person was a function of that office and how well one carried out its duties. “Questions of virtue thus inevitably allude to a social hierarchy that was generally accepted as a reflection of the hierarchy of creation, an order in nature or of nature, instituted not fortuitously but providentially, and therefore not subject to alteration by human beings,” (Jordan 1990, 21). In this intellectual context, arguing that women were superior in nature to men was a way of arguing that the office in life that women were intended by God to fulfill was itself better.