Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity [Hardcover]

This book examines the lives of adolescent girls in early Roman imperial society (first century BCE to third century CE).This book examines the position of girls in Roman imperial society. It shows how the pressures that propelled elite girls into marriage at an early age shaped their education, affected their mobility, and had consequences for their health and medical care.This book examines the position of girls in Roman imperial society. It shows how the pressures that propelled elite girls into marriage at an early age shaped their education, affected their mobility, and had consequences for their health and medical care.Elite women in the Roman world were often educated, socially prominent, and even relatively independent. Yet the social regime that ushered these same women into marriage and childbearing at an early age was remarkably restrictive. In the first book-length study of girlhood in the early Roman Empire, Lauren Caldwell investigates the reasons for this paradox. Through an examination of literary, legal, medical, and epigraphic sources, she identifies the social pressures that tended to overwhelm concerns about girls' individual health and well-being. In demonstrating how early marriage was driven by a variety of concerns, including the value placed on premarital virginity and paternal authority, this book enhances an understanding of the position of girls as they made the transition from childhood to womanhood.Introduction; 1. Formal education and socialization in virtue; 2. Protecting virginity; 3. Medical perspectives on puberty; 4. The pressure to marry; 5. The wedding; Epilogue. Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity offers a sustained and subtle account of a group only glimpsed fleetingly in the ancient sources.
Eve DAmbra, Bryn Mawr Classical Review'Her scholarship is impressive & This book will be of interest to those engaged more widely in womens studies as well as to those wishing to explore aspects of ancient Roman soclS-