The virgin and the bride : idealized womanhood in late antiquity
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The virgin and the bride : idealized womanhood in late antiquity
Harvard University Press, 1996
Available at 12 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
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  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 163-175
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
During the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the prevailing ideal of feminine virtue was radically transformed: the pure but fertile heroines of Greek and Roman romance were replaced by a Christian heroine who ardently refused the marriage bed. How this new concept and figure of purity is connected with - indeed, how it abetted - social and religious change is the subject of Kate Cooper's book. The Romans saw marital concord as a symbol of social unity - one that was important to maintaining the vigour and political harmony of the empire itself. This is nowhere more clear than in the ancient novel, where the mutual desire of hero and heroine is directed toward marriage and social renewal. But early Christian romance subverted the main outline of the story: now the heroine abandond her marriage partner for an otherworldly union with a Christian holy man. Cooper traces the reception of this new ascetic literature across the Roman world. How did the ruling classes respond to the Christian claim to moral superiority, represented by the new ideal of sexual purity? How did women themselves react to the challenge to their traditional role as matrons and matriarchs?
In addressing these questions, Cooper gives us a picture of dramatically changing ideas about sexuality, family and morality - a cultural revolution with far-reaching implications for religion and politics, women and men. "The Virgin and the Bride" offers a look at central aspects of the Christianization of the Roman world, and a discussion of the rhetoric of gender and the social meaning of idealized womanhood.
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