Pandora's daughters : the role and status of women in Greek and Roman antiquity
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Pandora's daughters : the role and status of women in Greek and Roman antiquity
Johns Hopkins University Press, c1987
- alk. paper
- Other Title
-
Ambiguo malanno
Available at 8 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Translation of: L'ambiguo malanno
Bibliography: p. 185-219
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Expanded and updated for this English-language translation, Pandora's Daughters offers the first history of women in ancient Greece and Rome to be written from a legal perspective. Moving outward from an examination of the legal evidence-the laws governing marriage and divorce, sexual behavior, and inheritance-Cantarella demonstrates how literary, anecdotal, and juridical sources can and cannot be used to discover what Greek and Roman men thought about women. She offers a provocative feminist interpretation of the sociological information that can be derived from law codes, lawyers' speeches, records and discussions of custom, and legislation to determine the status of women in society. At the same time she draws upon the evidence of myth, ritual, and literature to question whether women were actually subjugated to the extent that the alws imply.
Cantarella also provides a balanced evaluation of one of the most controversial issues in women's history, the question of matriarchy in prehistoric Greece and Rome. She considers the original sources that have been used as evidence while taking into account the historical contexts in which modern theories of women's societies have been produces.
By examining the structures of Greek and Roman society, Pandora's Daughters reveals the points at which sexual roles became codified and came to be viewed as biological rather than cultural. The societies of ancient Greece and Rome, Cantarella demonstrates, were violently misogynistic. Yet in many respects the position of women in pagan antiquity was higher than it would be under Christianity.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Translator's Note
Preface
Introduction
Part I. Greece
Chapter 1. Matriarchy in Prehistory, Myth and History
Chapter 2. Origins of Western Misogyny
Chapter 3. Exclusion from the Polis
Chapter 4. Philosophers and Women
Chapter 5. Women and Literature
Chapter 6. Homosexuality and Love
Chapter 7. The Hellenistic Age: New Images, Old Stereotypes
Part II. Rome
Chapter 8. The Hypothesis of Matriarchy
Chapter 9. The Period of the Kings and the Republic
Chapter 10. The Principate and the Empire: The Emancipation of Women?
Chapter 11. The Byzantine Empire
Conclusion
Abbreviations Used in the NOtes
Notes
Index
Books in the Series
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