The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity

by Kate Cooper

Book Overview

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 lively book.

The Romans saw marital concord as a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674939506
• ISBN13: 9780674939509
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"