Women at the Beginning

by Geary, Patrick J.

• ISBN13: 9780691124094
• ISBN10: 0691124094
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-30
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century. Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society. Unlike other books on the subject,Women at the Beginningattempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
CHAPTER ONE Women and Origins in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages	7	(19)
CHAPTER TWO Writing Women Out: Amazons and Barbarians	26	(17)
CHAPTER THREE A Tale of Two Judiths	43	(17)
CHAPTER FOUR Writing Women In: Sacred Genealogy and Gender	60	(16)
EPILOGUE Women at the End	76	(3)
Notes	79	(20)
Suggestions for Further Reading	99	(2)
Index	101