Religious Women in Greece and Rome

1. Religious women in Greece and Rome 2. Introducing Anderson pp. 24 66

Greek Women in Religion

• Pomeroy’s description of three cults in which women were prominent emphasizes several features of women’s history: – The close association with sexuality – virgins involved in purification rituals, for instance – From sexuality to reproduction – women in Thesomorphian fertility ritual – Production: weaving a new robe for Athena every four years (two girls between 7 and 11) Why? What has not yet “happened” to their bodies?

Importance of the rituals?

• Pomeroy claims that when one woman was rejected to serve as

kanēphoroi

, her brother Harmodius and his friend Aristogiton killed Hipparchus, Pisistratus’ son • They were both killed for their assassination

Mother-Daughter Ceremony

• Pomeroy also looks at two cult festivals to Demeter – Mother nature • She hid her daughter,

Korē

or

Persephone

wool” , away in a cave where the “maiden worked in • However, intrigued by the narcissus, she wandered away from her mother and was captured by Hades Demeter and wheat stalks

Why women’s rituals?

• Pomeroy suggests two reasons: – Matriarchy – Natural connection between birth and fertility • She ignores, however, the high value on virginity, the constant affirmation of women’s daily roles and expectations in the rituals (at work, serving, maintaining a good reputation in order to participate, etc.) Korē

Roman religion

• For Roman women, “participation in religion could be both an obligation and a pleasure.” (Pomeroy, 205) • Two categories, religious ceremonies native to Rome and “Oriental” imports, such as Isis rituals • For Roman women, unlike Greek, participation was much more “categorized”: – Plebian and patrician – Respectable women and disreputable – Age, free or slave, etc.

– young virgin, celibate adult, wife, wife married only once (

univira

) and widow

Fortuna – goddess of fortune

• To Pomeroy, Romans used religious sanctions to promote socially desirable behaviour • Guaranteed fruits of the earth and women’s physical maturation and sexual fulfillment

Men’s commentary on women’s religion

• Livy’s writing demonstrate that he served Augustus’ marital principles (cults centered on child-bearing, chastity and family) • Juvenal satirized women’s participation in the rituals, suggesting that while a ceremony was on, women could drink and make lewd gestures (etc.!!!) but he did not criticize the Vestal Virgins

Vestal Virgins

• Vestals lasted from about 600 BCE to 394 CE • “Persecution” of the vestals in times of political strife shares the belief in the close relationship between the virtue of women and the welfare of the political state • Commentators include: Aristotle, Livy and Tacitus, speaking of several states and the women’s lack of virtue the major contribution to the fall of these states (Sparta, Etruria, Rome) Vestal virgin statues (Rome)

Emancipated women?

• “The lives of Vestals were severely regulated, but in some respects they were the most emancipated women in Rome” (213) • The XII Tables gave these women the legal right to be freed of

pater familias

• They could drive through Rome in a chariot • They had preferred seating at theatre and games • Yet they became increasingly difficult to find

ceres

Ceres and Tellus

• Both associated with agriculture and human fecundity • Both were goddesses of marriage • Roman expansion assimilated Ceres with Demeter (syncretism) and the myths and rites of Demeter/Ceres were performed by women

Tellus

• Tellus, Terra Mater – the earth mother (as with Greek Gaia or Ge) • Three separate festivals during the year for her

Oriental cults

• Isis cult is very different • It addressed the emotional and religious needs of both men and women • Isis could be all things to all people and thus; •

Henotheistic

“belief in one god without denying the existence of others” • Wife, mother, whore, supreme Egyptian god in Hellenistic and Roman worlds

Mithras

• On the ultra-male side, one group not interested in Isis were Roman soldiers, who instead followed the cult of masculinity and militancy found in Mithras Mithras slaying a bull

Epilogue

• To Pomeroy, “the women who are known to us are those who influenced matters of interest to men” (228) • Prostitutes, political women and masculine women are the most prominent – do you agree?

• “In this account, I have attempted to find about the realities of women’s existence in the ancient world rather than concentrate on the images that men had of women” (229). Did she succeed?

• Confining women to the domestic sphere and the anti female thought of poets and philosophers are the most devastating legacies.

Anderson and Zinsser

• Inherited traditions: • “Despite differences of culture, law, and circumstance, the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and Hebrew traditions about women are more similar than they are different. The bulk of the pre-Christian traditions inherited about women subordinate and limit them, seeing women as inferior to and dependent on men” (25).

Inherited traditions, continued

• “Some of these pre-Christian traditions, however, consist of images and eras in which women’s equality, power, and independence flourished. Never totally erased, they too form part of the legacy of Europe’s women” (25).

• Christianity’s role: emphasis on equality of believers came to change a few traditions but, “The pattern of freedom followed by restriction, set in the early Christian Church, provided a model for later Church actions regarding ♀” (25)

Traditions Subordinating

• The written record: Homer, Celtic and Germanic law, Roman law, the Pentateuch, all subordinated women as inferior to and dependent on men • These became axioms: natural, inevitable, God-given.

• Women’s bodies: menstruation, uterus, birth, meant no war, law, government and much of religion

Male thinkers Subordinating ♀

• Aristotle – scientific authority until 16 th century • Cicero – jurist – “weakness of intellect” • Philo – Genesis – female sex irrational and akin to bestial passions

Women’s inferior bodies

• Menstruation as mysterious, dangerous, contaminating and for women, debilitating • Uterus and reproduction even more derogatory, a “deformed male” • Wandering womb, uterus as “animal within an animal” (Plato) • Hippocrates – the womb wandered in the body, looking for love, and bumped into other parts to cause disease • “cold” and “moist” not “hot” and “dry”

Turn outward the woman’s, turn inward, so to speak, and fold double the man’s, and you will find the same in both in every respect

Galen Male and Female reproductive organs as drawn by Andreas Vesalius in

Tabulae Sex

Written in xxx

Women’s approved roles-daughter

• Daughter, wife, mother and widow • Sidenote: avuncular (from the uncle’s side) – Distaff: from the aunt’s side (what is a distaff?) • Defined in relation to men, women were categorized primarily by their sexual activity with men” (33) • Virginity and chastity are obedience • Most writing and legends in these cultures focus on the girl’s virginity

Women’s approved roles-wife

• “There was nothing casual about the transfer of authority over a young woman from one man to another” (36) • Also, the gift, to compensate the bride’s family, to provide for the new relationship • Sexually faithful, fertile, bearing healthy boys, to manage the household or perform its duties herself, support her husband’s military endeavours

Women’s approved roles-mother

• Childlessness was a woman’s fault • Divorce was usually easy for a man to get if his wife did not produce children • Those who had children got into the “double burden” – performing housework and childcare

and

earning extra income • “The role of the chaste wife and mother, who was prolific, hardworking, and devoted to her housekeeping and her family was one of the most powerful traditions inherited.” (44)

Women’s Dishonour: Slave, Prostitute and Concubine

• Earliest writings of all cultures have slave women serving warrior’s needs • Celtic and Germanic cultures had no prostitutes because of slaves and polygamy • These women were stigmatized, marginalized, regulated • Courtesans: also hostesses and companions, such as Aspasia Either up here or down there

Not the norm, from prostitute to Empress of the Roman Empire in the East Theodora

Women as men’s enemies-myth

• Myth-list: • Circe (men to swine) • Schylla (rock) • Charybdis (hard place) • Echidna (mother of Cerberus) • Chimera and Sphinx • The Furies • Harpies (birds with women’s heads) • Gorgons (women with snake hair) • Sigurd (starvation, famine) • Grendel’s mother (old hag) Harpies Furies

Women as enemies-ordinary

• Semonides poem (in Pomeroy) only one woman of ten types is a good wife-the bee • Woman as nag • Standard joke in Greek and Roman comedies to make fun of wives • There is no equivalent term or example for misogyny; misanthropy, interestingly, means hating humankind (yes, mankind)