Title: The virgin and the bride
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 lively book.

The Romans saw marital concord as a symbol of social unity - one that was important to maintaining the vigor 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 abandons 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 their questions, Cooper gives us a vivid picture of dramatically changing ideas about sexuality, family, morality - a cultural revolution with far-reaching implications for religion and politics, women and men. The Virgin and the Bride offers a new look at central aspects of the Christianization of the Roman world, and an engaging discussion of the rhetoric of gender and the social meaning of idealized womanhood.
Subjects: Histoire, Valeurs sociales dans la littérature, Christian saints in literature, Saintes chrétiennes dans la littérature, Femmes, Literature, Literature and society, Femmes dans la littérature, Christianity and literature, Ascetisme, Women and literature, Littérature latine, Women, Littérature et société, Christianisme et littérature, Married women in literature, Latin literature, Christian hagiography, Auteurs latins, Social values in literature, History, Roman World, Virginité dans la littérature, Littérature chrétienne primitive, Letterkunde, History and criticism, Kuisheid, Histoire et critique, Latin authors, Vrouwen, Early Christian literature, Virginity in literature, Femmes chrétiennes dans la littérature, Femmes et littérature, Women in literature, Christian women saints in literature, Latin literature, history and criticism, Christian literature, early, history and criticism, Women saints