Why are men afraid of intelligent women?

Having reached middle age, and been a teacher all of the time, I've often seen how men - old or young - seem to be afraid of girls and women who have some intelligence. Why would that be?

Do they feel inferior? Do they think those women would look down on them? I don't know.

What I know is that there seems to be lurking danger in women's intelligence. For centuries women have been the lesser of the human race. They did not provide the food, they did not go hunting. They make the shelter and cared for the children (which in itself already proved they had some sense). They were often treated as stock, easily bought and sold.

It took a lot of time before women got rights - and it even took until after Word War One for the right to vote. A father, and later on the husband, was master over his daughter or wife. They could do what they wanted, without being punished. In mediëval law it was literally put you could beat your wife.

Luckily for us in the West times have changed. Around the 1900s it became more and more usual to let children - also girls - go to school. My own grandma, who was born in 1900, attented school and so did all her older siblings. As soon as people are given education, they are able to form ideas of their own and develop views on the world.

I don't say there were no intelligent women earlier on. But due to their circumstances, they will not have had a lot of use for their intelligence. Just think of the so-called 'witches'. I think most of them were just women who wanted a life of their own without male involvement - and that was weird behavior in those times.

The more intelligent you are as a woman, the less chance you have of finding a husband who can put up with that. My own dad had a high IQ, which he passed to both myself and my sister. He did not have a problem marrying a woman who also had a pretty mind of her own. But in most of my relationships - and the same goes for my sister - the then partner described me as 'difficult' and that was where the relation broke down on. Now I don't mind I don't have a husband. I'm fine and I have a good life. I would not want to share it with another person. And if I did, it would have to be someone like my father. Only then the marriage could have a chance.

What is your view on this?