Examining the Family in the Late Antique West

Emma Southon

Anti-Family Rhetoric in Christian Texts

Emma Southon

Early Christianity

• 1. Corinthians 7:8-9• Apocryphal Acts of Apostles• Martyrologies

Jovinian Controversy

• St Jerome– ‘If it is good not to touch a woman, it is bad to touch

one: for there is no opposite to goodness but badness’ Adv Jov 7.1

• St Augustine– ‘This we now say, that, according to this condition of

being born and dying, which we know, and in which we have been created, the marriage of male and female is some good; the compact whereof divine Scripture so commends’ De Bono Con 3.

Monasticism vs. Marriage

• ‘A certain maiden of marriageable age named Cilinia, who had been betrothed, asked Genovefa to change her clothing so that she might obtain the grace that Christ had conferred on Genovefa…Thus the girl was saved from the shipwreck and contagion of the world.’

• Vita Genovefa (423-502): 27.

Monasticism vs. Marriage

• ‘The holy virgin Gregoria…which woman, in her younger years, desiring to live a nun's life, fled to the church from marriage, already agreed upon by her friends…, and so, leaving her spouse upon earth, she merited a spouse in heaven.

• Gregory the Great (540-604) Dialogus 3.14.

Monasticism vs. Marriage

• ‘But when her father betrothed her and meant to give the girl in marriage against her will, she had been stricken with such an affliction of the eyes and burning fever that it was though she could scarcely survive…When the father saw his daughter restored to health he again decided to give her a husband…discovering his intent, the girl too a friends advice to flee away with her.’

• Burgundofara (603-645) in Jonas of Bobbio Vita Columbani 2:11-22.

Monasticism vs. Marriage• Aldegund (died c. 684)• Anstrude (c. 645-709)• Bertilla (died c. 700)• Audrina (died c. 603)• Austreberta (650-703)• Rusticula (c. 556-632)• Clothild (475 – 545)• Bathild (626-680)• Sadalberga (c. 605-670) • Radegund (520–586)

Monasticism vs. Marriage: Avitus of Vienne (540-517)

• ‘[Eve] who is subject to man and doomed to suffer a master in the chamber... You see how a woman is really a captive, although she bears the empty name of wife and in a hollow charade is called consort and equal.’

• Avitus, De Virginitate.

• “You will endure the domination of your husband in bed and fear your lord who I have given to you as a mate. In subjugation you will obey his commands and with bent head accustom yourself to male pleasure”.

• Avitus De spiritualis historiae gestis 1.140-43

Monasticism vs. Marriage: Avitus of Vienne (540-517)

• “but it often happens that as she groans, she gives birth to dead children”

• De Virginitate

• “Then everything is gone, everything her joys promised her when she framed her prayers”:

• De Virginitate

Monasticism vs. Marriage: Liber ad Gregoriam (c.480-500)

• ‘You have been bought, O matrona, and purchased by the contracts of your dowry agreement, bound by as many fetters as [you have limbs], nor to be sure have you known your husband carnally for any other reason than you cease to have authority even over your very body.’

Liber ad Greg. 7.12-14

• Only to or in reference to women• Always sexual in nature• Physical captivity vs. Spiritual freedom• Only in the most theological/rhetorical

contexts• Does not represent a lived experience of most

women.