The Roles Of Women In Antiquity Book Review Example

In the literary world, every literary work, every word written is there for a purpose. Purposes differ from work to work. Some books are aimed at entertainment and mindless enjoyment of a fiction story; others are there to challenge one’s perception of the world and enter new realms. Academic and historical books are of a different type; they are aimed at widening one’s understanding of the past and how it contributed to the contemporary reality. In this regard, historical books tell the story of the gone past and speak for the people and cultures that are no more. One of such books is “Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classic Antiquity” by Sarah B. Pomeroy. The aim of this paper is to outline the review of this book. In this regard, attention is paid to the purpose of writing it, author’s point of view and my personal perspective on it. The paper also pays attention to the details of the text and how things have changed since the time outlined in the book.
Except for the obvious purpose of writing a book in order to cover the suggested topic, an academic and historical book is often written in order to cover an existing gap in the literature in the target field of studies. This book was not an exception. According to the author, the main rationale for writing this book was “to write a social history of women through the centuries in the Greek and Roman worlds; there is no comprehensive book on this subject in English” (Pomeroy, p. x). In this regard, the author outlines that there are books on various aspects of female roles in the Antique Greece and Rome, but they are written for a specific academic audience and are hard to access for the wider audience. On the other hand, many books are written in foreign languages like Greek and Italian and are hard to acquire.
Another rationale for writing this book was more academic and research-driven. In this regard, the author wanted to find out what was the role of women in the male-dominant societies of the Antique Greece and Rome. She aimed at analysing ancient texts and archaeological data in order to explore how did that happen that in cultures, mythologies of which had strong female deities, women had such a submissive role. The author also aimed at demonstrating the diversity of roles women were playing across the classes of social stratification (Pomeroy, p. 8). In this regard, the author aimed at outlining a systematic analysis of female roles, since most of the existing research materials concentrated mainly on the position of women from the upper classes, mainly because there were more historical materials on the subject matter.
The main point the author makes through her book is not just that women of different social classes favoured different freedoms, that Greek women were more often left at home, while Roman upper-class wives could own a property and had a limited participation in the public life. The main argument the author makes is that under the conditions of the patriarchal society, female complexity was divided across roles and classes as one of the means of controlling female potential. In this regard, the author argues that even nowadays the decision between archetypal roles women have to choose remains of the previous epochs. Consequently, she writes:
“The fact that modern women are frustrated by being forced to choose between being an Athena – an intellectual, asexual career woman – or an Aphrodite – a frivolous sex object – or a respectable wife-mother like Hera shows that the Greek goddesses continue to be archetypes of female existence. If the characteristics of the major goddesses were combined, a whole being with unlimited potential for development – female Zeus or Apollo – would emerge” (Pomeroy, p. 9).
In this regard, another crucial point that the author makes is that under the conditions where women were allowed very little freedom, women could manage to combine at least a few of the above roles would not enter the Antique books of history, mainly because patriarchal society would not allow a woman to be complex creature, only a functional role-paly depending on male’s desires. In this regard, the author argues that irrespective of quite supressed position of women in the Antique societies of Greece and Rome, women still had a source of female resistance to imposed social norms – the cults of goddesses were the source of moral support and worship of female strength in it diverse incarnations. Furthermore, with further influence of Egyptian culture, the cult of Isis, which was the closest to combining all of the female roles in one goddess, was gaining popularity in both societies.
Personally, I think that one of the strengths of the book and author’s perspective is that she managed to separate the contemporary perception of female emancipation from the desires of women of the time. In other words, she uses examples to demonstrate that women of less privileged classes of concubines and prostitutes wanted to enter higher classes of Antique society; however, respected mothers of Greece and property-owning matronas of Rome were not eager to gain emancipation through becoming prostitutes and heteras, mainly because their world perception was still conditioned by the society they lived in and concern for their children rather than the potential of personal freedom.
The next four chapters were devoted to the position of women in the Athenian society followed by three chapters on Roman society. In this regard, the author argued that because there was more material on Greece, she could explore more social and economic classes of Greek society. Comparing two societies, she comes to a conclusion that irrespective of democratic regime in Athens, Greek wives were more deprived of public appearances than Roman women, which was conditioned by the property right women favoured in Rome (Pomeroy, p. 134). Of particular attention was the status of concubines in both societies who were not prostitutes, but intelligent companions who accompanied men to public events to which their wives were not allowed. These women favoured power of similar to men being able even to influence political events (Pomeroy, p. 128). On the other hand, their children had no rights for a legal claim of their father property. So their power was limited just as wives in their chambers.
Overall, comparing the times described in the book and contemporary reality, it can be argued that certain things have changed, and the other remained the same across different cultures. The contemporary Western society demonstrates a greater female emancipation than it was in Antiquity, women have equal right with men; they can choose an independent path in their lives and approach it. There are feminism and struggle for female self-identification and self-expression. On the other hand, the actual reality of the contemporary Western society remains predominantly male and patriarchal in its nature. It is quite difficult for women to achieve success in contrast to men, and as the author outlined they still have to choose between goddess archetypes patriarchal society of Antiquity has created for them. It is very seldom that women are given an opportunity to combine all of the mentioned above roles and preserve their integrity. This is the case for the Western society, which is considered to be emancipated. In some of the Middle-Eastern and African countries, the level of female independence is no better and sometimes even worse than it was in the Antiquity. In Taliban perception, women are only subjects for male use and are disgraced to live on their own. Female genital mutilation is practiced in more than 30 countries in the world, not to mention the rate of women being killed in family violence in various countries both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Thus, it can be argued that for many women not so much has changed since Antiquity.

Work Cited

Pomeroy, S.B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classic Antiquity. New
York, NY: Schocken. 1975. Print.