Product Description

This book reveals what life was really like in the ancient world. The emergence of Christianity in the West and Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy and austerity is contrasted with the undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Tracing particular motifs that illuminate this hidden history of life in antiquity, the authors provide an account which takes into account new research.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247941 in Books
• Published on: 1992-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Customer Reviews

The Grandeur that was Rome
The subjects, and people, covered in this volume of the History of Private Life are probably the most remote for the modern day reader. Medieval and Renaissance life appears more colorful than Pagan Rome and Early Christian Byzantium, just like a medieval tapestry draws the eye away from a worn marble statue. But Roman life proves to be just as colorful and complex--perhaps more so than medieval life. This volume pays close attention to the everyday activities which took man, woman, child, and slave from cradle to grave. One learns that a man would be fined more for stealing a pig than for killing a slave; that women would attempt to attract men by feeding them a fish that had been held between their loins; and that the domestic sphere of ancient Rome was queerly both public _and_ private. Copiously illustrated with photographs and reproductions, some in color.

The Shifting Ground of Ancient Family Life
This is a fine collection of essays on the changing quality of family life as classical Rome shifted to medieval Rome. I found its accounts of early Christianity's impact on personal life particularly interesting. For example, Michele Rouche shows how evolving church doctrines on marriage affected families in Western Europe. In the long process of conversion, many missionaries seemed to assume that cultural standards from the old Near East were those of God, while those native to Europe came from the Devil. Most clergymen taught that the church's rites and approval were necessary for valid marriage, but for centuries this was hard to enforce. The priests could not simply declare all existing marriages invalid. Still, they increasingly denounced families that formed their own bonds independently, saying that these couples were living in sin. The clerics taught that lovers who separated and found other lovers were "bigamists", and their children were "bastards". The church informed local people that lovers of the same sex were "sodomites". Many European women found it shocking that the church condemned lesbian lovers, demanded they abandon each other, and required them to perform heavy "penances for sin". (p. 533)

The book traces slow but big changes in human relations, rights, duties, expectations and dreams over several centuries. It gives perspective on the options we face as families today.