Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages | Judith P. Hallett (Essay Date 1984)
JUDITH P. HALLETT (ESSAY DATE 1984)
SOURCE: Hallett, Judith P. “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism.” In Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers, edited by John Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan, pp. 241-62. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.
In the following excerpt, Hallett investigates the position of women in Roman society as reflected through literature, arguing for an incipient “feminism”—which contradicts Roman women’s expected demeanor as subservient and compliant—in Latin love elegies.
Domum servavit. Lanam fecit: “She kept up her household; she made wool.” This was the ideal Roman woman—in the eyes and words of what was doubtless a male obituary writer, late second century B.C. vintage.1 Our information on the role traditionally assigned Roman women—and by role, as distinct from social position...
[The entire page is 4200 words long]
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