1. See the examples in Milnor, “Women.”

1. See the examples in Milnor, “Women.”

See the examples in Milnor, “Women.”

For the record, my own theological perspective to gender is egalitarian, and I have explored such questions in other works (e.g., Keener, Paul; idem, “Perspective”). My effort here, however, is to focus on providing as evenhanded a survey of the historical evidence as is possible, a survey that I hope even those who disagree (whether with my contemporary egalitarian application or my view that Luke was among the more, rather than less, progressive of first-century authors) will find helpful.

Levine, “Introduction to Companion,” 1. For one survey of several approaches (esp. to Acts 6:1–7 and Luke 10:38–42), see Koperski, “Women and Discipleship”; more recent studies include Howes, “Handelinge.”

Cf. Melzer-Keller, “Frauen” (ambivalent vs. highly positive). Beck, “Women,” 281, sees Acts as more androcentric than other NT works but (300–304) also recognizes positive female role models. Ringe, Luke, 3, 8, 11–12, 112 (esp. 12, on Luke 24), notes both positive and negative traits, although her view appears ultimately more positive. D’Angelo, “Redactional View,” thinks Luke ambiguous but more restrictive than Mark or John. Reid, Choosing, 205, concludes that Luke portrays women as primarily silent, so that a feminist approach must read the narrative “against Luke’s intent.” She acknowledges the positive side of Luke’s portrayal but believes that the message is often mixed and must be recontextualized for new settings (206–7); most interpreters (whatever their view of Luke’s perspective on gender roles) would concur with the importance of cultural recontextualization.

E.g., O’Toole, Unity of Theology, 118–26 (by comparison with his, not our, era, 125); Sweetland, “Luke the Christian,” 60–61; Gaventa, Acts, 43–44; Allen, Preaching, 107–22; Bock, Theology, 344–52; cf. Kee, Origins, 91; Rigato, “Donna.” Pelikan, Acts, 205, is positive (but cf. the limitation [206]).

Cf. Arlandson, Women, 117, who notes that the level of a woman’s experience of oppression depended on her class (citing the contrast between plantation slaves and a female plantation owner); cf. the insights of womanist theologians, esp. here Grant, Black Women’s Jesus.

Sweetland, “Luke the Christian,” 60–61; see (sect. 3).

E.g., Tannehill, Luke, 132–39; Danker, Luke, 58; Flanagan, “Women in Luke”; Maly, “Women and Luke”; Witherington, Acts, 334–39; Kee, Origins, 91; cf. Langner, Hechos, 46.

The question of these disciples’ gender in Luke 8:2–3 is not peripheral, since the unit follows on the heels of a woman protagonist in 7:36–50 (only their gender, not their social status, is in common). In contrast to the woman of Luke 7, however, these women are portrayed as benefactresses; contrary to later tradition, Mary Magdalene is certainly not a prostitute (see, e.g., Reid, Choosing, 125, 129, also rightly noting [130] that their sharing possessions fits the paradigm for discipleship in Luke-Acts).

Women appear in ancient healing reports (e.g., Epid. inscr. 4), but even here men normally outnumber them (see in Grant, Religions, 57).

Such balancing is often noted; e.g., Flender, Theologian, 9–10; Kistemaker, Acts, 783; Stricher, “Parallels”; Spencer, Gospel and Acts, 41–43. Shillington, Introduction, 105, estimates that women may constitute only roughly a quarter of the persons featured in the Gospel, but in Mark they are less than 15 percent and in Matthew just more than 17 percent; for comparisons with other ancient sources, see discussion below.

Some other ancient works also balance stories about men and women; e.g., b. ʿErub. 53a–54a (see Valler, “Talk”).

On gender roles in Greco-Roman antiquity, see, e.g., Keener, “Marriage,” 687–91.

Thurston, Widows, 28. This fits our proposed audience, dominated by churches in Philippi and Corinth and others in their region.

Gaventa, Acts, 44; idem, “Daughters,” 53–56 (noting also [55] that Luke gives little attention to female characters’ appearance). For another comparison, Josephus usually plays down women’s roles in Israel’s history, though he accentuates Abigail (Begg, “Abigail Story”); on women in Tobit (as strong characters guarding their people), see Levine, “Women in Tobit.” Luke says little about women’s beauty or sexuality, major concerns of the romances, where women almost always figure heavily.

For suggestions of this egalitarianism see, e.g., Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 55; Beavis, “Origins.”

Sometimes Q material reveals male-female pairing (e.g., Luke 13:18–20/Matt 13:31–33; Luke 17:26–35/Matt 24:37–41; see Michaels, “Pairs and Parallels”; Flender, Theologian, 9–10).

Reid, Choosing, 206, doubts that the prophetic women of Luke’s opening narratives (Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna) represent “the ideal for Christian women” (linking them instead with the OT era). But the one programmatic statement of Luke-Acts that specifically mentions women, Acts 2:17–18, points toward an even greater and more paradigmatic prophetic role for women in the new era.

E.g., Jos. Ant. 4.219; Plut. Publ. 8.4 (on an earlier period); Justin. Inst. 2.10.6 (though contrast Gaius Inst. 2.105); Sipra VDDeho. pq.7.45.1.1. For a perspective that nuances such references, Maccini, Women as Witnesses, 63–97.

See discussion below; examples in Harich-Schwarzbauer, “Philosophers” (with more notable Christian examples in late antiquity on 720).

See Witherington, Acts, 336; many rhetoricians mentioned in public only women who were deceased or considered disreputable (336n38). See further discussion below.

Ibid., 335–36. Women could be mantic agents elsewhere in antiquity as well (see comment on Acts 16:16), but the charismatic nature of early Christianity as portrayed in Acts and Paul’s epistles seems far more pervasive than the special possession of select individuals in Greco-Roman paganism (see , ).

Scholars often argue that egalitarian sentiments declined in later parts of the NT; I believe that they declined far more in the church fathers, probably generally as the social status of the writers rose (Keener, “Woman,” 1211–14).

Beck, “Women,” 307, argues that women’s status in Acts appears “both immeasureably better than their place in society and far worse than that which the church had promised.”

Jervell, Unknown Paul, 157; for the contrast put more strongly, see Vander Stichele, “Gender,” 312 (following D’Angelo, “Redactional View”; Seim, Double Message, 3, 14–15; and others).

Jervell, Unknown Paul, 155. This statement may be too sweeping; Jervell himself concedes (156) the frequent appearance of widows (Luke 2:37; 4:25–26; 7:12; 18:3, 5; 20:47; 21:2; Acts 6:1; 9:39, 41). Male-female paired stories are less common in Acts than in the Gospel, but they are also balanced in mentions (Vander Stichele, “Gender,” 312, developing D’Angelo, “Redactional View,” 445). Rhetoricians might alternate proper names by gender at some points (Hermog. Inv. 4.4.188) simply for purposes of rhetorical variation, but Luke’s variation is more pervasive.

Roth, Blind, Lame, Poor, 207 (mentioning prisoners, lepers, and even the poor). Luke, right from the beginning, has a heavy emphasis on the marginalized and needy (e.g., Luke 1:7, 26–27, 48, 51–53). God also proved to be especially near the broken in the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen 29:31; Pss 51:17; 69:33; 138:6; Isa 57:15; Zeph 3:11–12).

Willner, “Oedipus Complex.”

E.g., Schüssler Fiorenza, “Criteria”; idem, “Interpretation”; Reid, Choosing, 158.

Arlandson, Women, 138; cf. also Witherington, Women, 101 (though he thinks Martha’s “serving” role also surprising).

Arlandson, Women, 138. See discussion below. See further comment on Acts 17:34.

See discussion below.

Though nature has fitted women more for lighter tasks rather than for the hard labor that men do (Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.8–23), men and women could interchange these works in some situations (46.23–31).

Rook, “Women in Acts?” Certainly, they did not help “to elect Matthias” (Jeffers, World, 251–52), who was not, in fact, “elected” (Acts 1:26), but they were part of the prayer in the preceding context.

Beck, “Women,” 281. Because Luke belongs to the Pauline circle (see our introduction, ), it is reasonable to suppose that he knows of women active in ministry in Paul’s circle, on which see many scholars, e.g., MacDonald, “Women in Churches,” 268–78; Bieringer, “Women”; Byrne, Romans, 450–51; Croft, “Text Messages”; Dunn, Romans, 900; France, “Romans,” 240–42; Gerberding, “Women”; Gooder, “Women”; Hoyt, “Romans,” 274; Mben, “Women”; McGinn, “Co-Workers”; Mingo, “Mujeres”; Mourlon Beernaert, “Collaboratrices”; Murphy-O’Connor, “Promoter”; Omanson, “Identifying”; Osiek, “Diakonos”; Scholer, “Co-Workers”; Schüssler Fiorenza, “Women”; Smith, “Coworkers”; Venetz, “Frauen.”

A large number of commentators (e.g., Conzelmann, Corinthians, 246; Murphy-O’Connor, Corinthians, 164; Horsley, Corinthians, 188–89, 196; Hays, First Corinthians, 246–48; Bassler, “Corinthians,” 328; Snyder, Corinthians, 185–86; most thoroughly, Fee, Corinthians, 699–705) and other scholars (e.g., Bruce, “All Things,” 94; Pelser, “Women,” 7:100; Petzer, “Reconsidering”; du Toit, “Swyggebod”; Schulz, “Look”; Lockwood, “Exclude”; Scroggs, “Woman,” 284; Meeks, Urban Christians, 125; cf. also Meeks, “Androgyne,” 203–4), including some of the ablest and best-known text critics (Fee, Presence, 272–81; Ehrman, Introduction, 484; Payne, “Fuldensis”; idem, “MS. 88”); it does not fit the context well. But against an interpolation here, see, e.g., Wire, Prophets, 149–52, 230–32; Jervis, “Reconsideration,” 52–59; Thiselton, Corinthians, 1148–50 (following esp. Ross, “Floating Words”); Collins, Corinthians, 516; Keener, Paul, 74–75; idem, “Learning,” 162; Schüssler Fiorenza, Memory, 230; Niccum, “Voice”; Hasitschka, “Frauen”; Carson, “Silent,” 142; Odell-Scott, “Dilemma”; Bryce, “Study”; cf. perhaps Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 233.

Some have viewed it as an interpolation (Walker, “Paul’s Views”; Trompf, “Attitudes”; Cope, “Step”), but the vast majority do not (e.g., Murphy-O’Connor, “Character,” esp. 621; Blattenberger, Rethinking, 6–8; Mitchell, Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 261n417; Furnish, Theology, 76n1).

On the function of head coverings in 1 Cor 11:2–16, see, e.g., Keener, “Head coverings”; idem, Paul, 19–69; for other relevant background, cf. Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise.

Keener, Paul, passim; cf. idem, “Subversive Conservative”; Lemmer, “Strategist.” Such a strategy (which I do understand as a strategy rather than a conviction about what should be universal) becomes more explicit in the Pastorals (1 Tim 5:14–15; Titus 2:3–5; cf. 1 Tim 6:1). Even in later, probably more conservative centuries, women’s roles among Christians proved a target for elite pagan critics (Cook, Interpretation, 166–67).

In Acts 21:9, it is possible that they prophesied regularly but did not prophesy Paul’s impending passion, the point that Luke emphasizes in the context (21:11; cf. 20:23); the narrator may do a favor to them, to Philip, and to others by not specifying individuals (apart from himself) in 21:12, since the position articulated there differs from that attributed to the divine perspective in 21:13–14. Of course, a senior prophet such as Agabus (cf. 11:28) might command more attention for Luke’s audience than would virgins anyway, given their likely age and experience (see again comment on Acts 21:9), despite the ideal regarding both gender and age in 2:17–18. This need not alter the ideal.

Gaventa, “Daughters,” 60.

Cf. also Mark 16:11, though this may depend on Luke. On the disciples’ disbelieving the women, cf. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 40–41. For the centrality of women’s testimony for Luke’s account, see Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 129–32.

Their skepticism may accommodate skepticism about women’s testimony in antiquity; but historians accommodated a wide range of skepticism about miracles, and some works included a skeptical perspective only to refute it (e.g., Philost. Hrk. 7.9, 11; 8.2).

This genuine contrast was helpfully brought to my attention by Brock, “Magdalene.” Of the four Gospels, Matthew may be most emphatic, including two commissions to the women, which provide the model for the commission to all disciples in Matt 28:18–20 (cf. Keener, Matthew, 699, 715).

See discussion in Sanders, Figure, 280.

Emphasized by some (cf. apparently Pelikan, Acts, 206) as the model for one form of Christian ministry. They were, however, also all Jewish Galileans, reflecting their contingent historical situation no less.

Gaventa, “Daughters,” 60, suggests that as other prophecies in the narrative are fulfilled, the ideal reader should infer the ultimate fulfillment of this one as well. (Many of Luke’s contemporaries may not have recognized the extent to which this was not yet fulfilled, but Luke’s pairing of male and female prophetic figures may have disturbed such complacency.)

Both among some Judeans/Jews (e.g., Sir 9:9; 42:12; Test. Reub. 6:1–2; m. ʾAbot 1:5; Ketub. 7:6; t. Šabb. 1:14; b. Ber. 43b, bar.; ʿErub. 53b; y. ʿAbod. Zar. 2:3, §1; Soṭah 1:1, §7; Ḥal. 2:1, §10; John 4:27) and among Gentiles (Eurip. El. 343–44; Eurip. frg. 927; Theophr. Char. 28.3; Livy 34.2.9; 34.4.18 [but contrast 34.5.7–10]); in the rural Middle East more recently, Delaney, “Seeds,” 43.

Philosophers and moralists who associated with women drew criticism (see, e.g., Liefeld, “Preacher,” 239–41, citing Iren. Her. 1.13.1, 3; 1.23.2, 4; Lucian Runaways 18); the same accusation was used to discredit the Pharisees (Sanders, Figure, 109; Ilan, “Women to Pharisaism”) and gnostics (Klauck, Context, 488).

In view of the potential scandal, it is not likely that this tradition (also Mark 15:40–41) was invented (Witherington, Women, 117); it was clearly unconventional (Gnilka, Jesus, 179; Stanton, Gospels, 202).

See Gould, “Position in Athens,” 47, 50; Dover, “Attitudes,” 145; Pomeroy, Goddesses, 72, 170; Boer, Morality, 243–44 (though contrast drama, in Foley, “Conception,” 161; cf. Willner, “Oedipus Complex”); Lysias Or. 3.6, §97; Xen. Oec. 7.17–22; 9.5; Dio Chrys. Or. 6.11 (Diogenes); Plut. Demosth. 25.6; Cam. 11.2; Char. Chaer. 1.1.4; 5.4.10; in Hellenistic Egyptian marriage contracts, Verner, Household, 38. In preclassical Greece, see Hom. Od. 1.356–61; 18.184. For the general cultural ideals, cf. Malina and Neyrey, Portraits, 177–81; Giovannini, “Chastity,” 67; Delaney, “Seeds,” 42; the private sphere was more “honorable” for classical women (Xen. Oec. 7.30). But (see, e.g., Boer, Morality, 251) it was hardly as complete as some sources imply; e.g., for the limited architectural potential for such segregation in classical Greece, see Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture, 297; cf. deSilva, Honor, 193; architecture offers still less potential in the Roman West (White, “Pater familias,” 461).

Although an ideal of separation obtained (Wegner, Chattel, 18, 150–53; Ilan, Women, 128–29; Goodman, State, 37; cf. Swidler, Women, 119–20; Ps.-Phoc. 215–16; Tg. Rishon on Esth 2:7), full gender segregation was probably possible only among elites (Fiensy, “Composition,” 225, citing Philo, Spec. Leg. 3.169; Flacc. 89; 4 Macc 18:7), though bathing was separated (t. Nid. 6:15; Num. Rab. 9:12; cf. Safrai, “Home,” 762). Women went to the market (Verner, Household, 46), sometimes worked there (Safrai, “Home,” 752), and enjoyed considerable contact with other women (Goodman, State, 37). Some Eastern women, especially Persians, were more segregated than the Athenians (Jos. Ant. 11.191; Plut. Themist. 26.3–4; Alex. 21.3).

The traditional public-male/private-female distinction (e.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 3.21.2; 8.39.1; cf. MacMullen, “Women in Public,” 209) was never complete (e.g., Hallett, “Role,” 245) and was not now rigidly observed (Hemelrijk, “Masculinity”). Indeed, Romans in the early empire allowed even mixed bathing (Balch, “Paul, Families, and Households,” 268), although “honorable” women avoided it, it ultimately led to scandal (see, e.g., Pliny E. N.H. 33.54.153), and Hadrian banned it (Carcopino, Life, 258; McRay, Archaeology, 47–48; Massa, Pompeii, 115; though contrast Ward, “Baths”). Although banquets were traditionally separated (Vitruv. Arch. 6.7.4), this practice was beginning to break down among aristocratic Romans (Smith, Symposium, 208–9, 298n27; Stambaugh, City, 207). Romans knew that Greeks were stricter on this point (Corn. Nep. pref. 6–7).

E.g., Dio Chrys. Or. 3.70; Plut. Bride 9, Mor. 139C; 30, Mor. 142C; 32, Mor. 140D; some in Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 42.13–14. Even as late as the third century, those outside a household might not admit knowledge of a young bride’s appearance (Men. Rhet. 2.6, 404.11–14).

E.g., some Romans still viewed public affairs as primarily male (e.g., Pliny Ep. 4.19.4). A generation before Luke’s apostles, profaning an exclusively women’s festival in Rome caused scandal (Cic. Att. 1.12; Fam. 1.9.15; Plut. Caes. 10.1–3, 6; Cic. 28.2; cf. 19.3–4).

Cf. Klauck, Context, 488; Cook, Interpretation, 113–14, 166–67; Osiek and MacDonald, Place, 221–22.

When studying the practices of other cultures and eras, we usually seek to balance our modern values of gender egalitarianism (which I affirm) and the importance of cultural sensitivity (essential for objective study). Some degree of tension in how we balance these factors is difficult to avoid when we seek to learn sensitively and objectively about cultures for whom modern forms of these values were not yet among their range of options (although I believe that we should advocate for justice when we are engaging cultures and not just studying them). Some perspectives are not “progressive” by our standards yet were so by the standards of their own milieu, and we need to take into full account the social context in which they functioned.

On rural Galilee, cf. Horsley, Galilee, 204; in Hellenistic society, cf. Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 74; in traditional south Lebanon, see Eickelman, Middle East, 194.

For a mediating position, see, e.g., Boer, Morality, 251–56; Keener, “Marriage,” 687–91. The same range of opinion exists on Jewish roles; thus Witherington, Women, 10, urges a mediating approach.

E.g., Boer, Morality, 243–46; Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 12–20; in Judaism, cf. Swidler, Women, 56–82; and especially negatively, Jeremias, Jerusalem, 359–76.

E.g., Boer, Morality, 246–51; Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 11–12.

E.g., Boer, Morality, 269. For one balanced appraisal, see, e.g., Cohick, Women.

See Arlandson, Women, 117.

E.g., Plut. Cic. 20.2 (though presented less positively in 29.3); cf. Jos. Ant. 18.361. Even aristocrats, however, might view negatively a strong wife making demands of her husband (e.g., Jos. Ant. 18.246).

E.g., Diod. Sic. 1.27.2; Cosgrave, History of Costume, 14. Some suggest that adaptations in the LXX also reflect the freer environment of Ptolemaic Egypt as against the earlier Near East (Schorch, “Hellenizing Women”). Germans likewise depended on their wives prophetically, in contrast to Romans (Tac. Germ. 8).

E.g., Xen. Lac. 1.3–4 (contrasting Sparta with most city-states); Arist. Pol. 2.6.7, 1269b (complaining); Plut. S. Sp. Wom., Gorgo 5, Mor. 240E. But Spartan women, too, obeyed fathers and husbands (Plut. S. Sp. Wom., anonymous 22, Mor. 242B).

Billigmeier and Turner, “Roles,” 10.

Frank, Aspects, 22–23.

Appian Hist. rom. 3.11.1.

Salles, “Diversité.” For women’s higher roles in Rome than in Greece, see, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 244–47.

Verner, Household, 45.

Safrai, “Home,” 752. But Safrai (762) says that normally husbands went to the market.

Balch, “Paul, Families, and Households,” 274.

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.27–31.

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.8–23. Even during the male activity of war, Greek women played supporting roles (cf. Loman, “No Women”), though the humor in Aristophanes’s Lysistrata works because their role was limited.

See, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 21–25.

Pliny E. N.H. 35.40.147–48 (though he notes many more men and elaborates throughout 35.36.79–97 on Apelles alone).

Scheidel, “Women”; cf. Stambaugh, City, 99, 159. Yet women’s work in the fields seemed strange to many Greeks (Diod. Sic. 4.20). Lower classes probably did not divide work or spheres much by gender (Reden, “Work,” 743).

Robinson, Criminal Law, 17, 56. Roman law originally placed women under male custody because of “the weakness and light-mindedness of the female sex (infirmitas sexus and levitas animi)” (Pomeroy, Goddesses, 150).

Buckland, Roman Law, 288. In earlier Athenian law, adoption for inheritance could be invalidated if found to be influenced by a woman (Isaeus Menec. 1, 19; Philoct. 29–30), the legal equivalent to the testator’s being declared insane (Menec. 19).

Cf. Davies and Taylor, “Testimony”; Rothstein, “Testimony.”

E.g., Justin. Inst. 2.10.6 (though contrast Gaius Inst. 2.105); Schiemann, “Intestabilis,” 875; cf. Buckland, Roman Law, 293. For other groups, cf., e.g., Sen. E. Controv. 7.5; Prop. Eleg. 3.6.20; for distrust of women’s speech, see, e.g., Avianus Fables 15–16.

E.g., Jos. Ant. 4.219; Sipra VDDeho. pq.7.45.1.1; Wegner, Chattel, 120–23 (esp. 122).

Dupont, Life, 109–10. Citizen women with three children could conduct business without a guardian (e.g., P.Oxy. 1467, from 263 C.E.).

In Cic. Verr. 2.3.22.55. A wife who appeared to control her husband’s money, however, became an easy target for ridicule (Petron. Sat. 37).

More commonly, women would secure a man to represent them, befitting their “female weakness” (P.Oxy. 261.12–13).

Cf., e.g., marital gifts (Gardner, Women, 74).

E.g., Manetho Aeg. frg. 10, 20–21 (from Euseb. Chron. 1.96); cf. Cleopatra in Sib. Or. 11.254–59. For Attalid queens in Asia Minor, see Polyb. 22.20 (Verner, Household, 65–66).

Tac. Ann. 14.31–37. She was the king’s widow (14.31) and noted that Britons could fight under women (14.35); the Roman general mocks the abundance of women warriors in 14.36.

On her power, see Treggiari, “Jobs”; on her deification, see Flory, “Deification”; for her ambiguous status (as both feminine and imperial), cf. Jenkins, “Livia.”

E.g., Sherk, Empire, §3, p. 7. Women in emperors’ families often influenced them (e.g., Hdn. 5.8.10; 6.1.1, 10; Temporini–Gräfin Vitzthum, “Family,” 751; Balsdon, “Women”), though Rome’s emperors themselves were male.

See Flory, “Livia and History.”

Dio Cass. 56.47.1. The title “Augusta” applied to new emperors’ mothers (see Flory, “Augusta”).

Suet. Tib. 50.3.

Philo Embassy 319–20 (Meeks, Urban Christians, 24).

Shotter, “Agrippina.”

See, e.g., Young-Widmaier, “Representation”; further comment at Acts 25:13. Earlier Hasmonean women became newsworthy when widowhood or other factors granted them a degree of independence from men (see Sievers, “Women in Hasmonean Dynasty,” 144–45).

Cf., e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 24, §48 (Pleket 5); 243–44, §232 (CIL 10.6328/ILS 6278); Pomeroy, Goddesses, 200–201; Gardner, Women, 239–40; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 134; White, Origins of Architecture, 1:81; Winter, Left Corinth, 199–202; Gill, “Élites,” 115; cf. Gr. Anth. 7.728.

See, e.g., Brooten, Women Leaders, 151; Trebilco, “Communities,” 565–66; Matthews, “Ladies’ Aid”; Sanders, Figure, 109.

Forbis, “Image.” Cf., e.g., one munificent priestess in first-century C.E. Roman Spain in Donahue, “Iunia Rustica.”

See Hemelrijk, “Patronesses.”

See Hallett, “Same and Other.”

In Asia Minor, Kraabel, “Judaism in Asia Minor,” 44, lists “stephanophoros, prytanis, demiourgos, dekaprotos, hipparchos, archon, gymnastiarchos, agnothetis and timouchos.”

So, e.g., offices held by a number of younger men (Strubbe, “Young Magistrates”).

Gardner, Women, 67–68. Cf., e.g., Lalla of Lycia, a “gymnasiarch out of her own resources” (Pleket 13, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 157, §159).

Van der Horst, “Maria,” 679 (also noting that she is the first extant source to know of hydrochloric acid).

See, e.g., Kraemer, “Ecstatics,” 58–73. Social reality was undoubtedly more diverse, but Athenian law treated women as perpetual minors (Gould, “Position in Athens,” 43–44).

Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 14–16. No “sugar and spice” for Semonides.

Tarn, Civilisation, 99 (though, for limits, see 100–101); Verner, Household, 35–39, 64–65.

See Pomeroy, “Women in Egypt,” 318 (somewhat tentatively); Meeks, Moral World, 62.

Galilean women also seem to have acquired more freedoms (Goodman, State, 36), though husbands did want their wives to stay home and what little a wife earned belonged to her husband (37).

Plut. Cam. 8.3.

Plut. Caes. 5.2.

See, e.g., discussion in Winter, Wives, passim.

See Boatwright, “Imperial Women.”

The sine manu marriage, complete by the time of Gaius Inst. 1.111 in the second century C.E. (Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 130). The in manu marriage entailed subordination to, and dependence on, the husband (Gaius Inst. 1.49).

Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 138.

See Winter, Left Corinth, 123–26; cf. already Mommsen, History, 548.

Although I have drawn my examples from various periods, this remained true in much Roman literature of the early empire, such as the portrayal of mothers (perhaps reacting against new freedoms; e.g., in Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, see Gold, “She-Wolves”; Lateiner, “Mothers”; Newlands, “Mothers”).

See Keane, “Cave-Woman.”

E.g., Cic. Off. 2.16.55–57; Ael. Arist. Def. Or. 130, §41D; with barbarians and uneducated persons in Sen. Y. Dial. 6.7.3; cf. Jewish laws in m. Sukkah 2:8; Ḥag. 1:1; cf. esp. Sipre Num. 39.6.1 (where women, proselytes, and slaves do not belong to Israel proper).

Diog. Laert. 1.33. In Plato, see Avi-Yonah, Hellenism, 136; Longenecker, Social Ethics, 70.

E.g., t. Ber. 6:18; b. Menaḥ. 43b–44a, bar. “Gentile” naturally replaced “barbarian.” The saying is often noted (e.g., Meeks, “Androgyne,” 167–68; Bonsirven, Judaism, 134; Lohse, Environment, 150; Barth, Ephesians, 2:655–56), although the sentiment is gratitude for the privilege of observing more commandments (with Schüssler Fiorenza, Memory, 217).

Plut. Sulla 35.2; likewise (33.3), he ordered Pompey to divorce his wife and then gave him his daughter, already pregnant by another husband; she died in childbirth. In a fictitious work, one man, unwilling to accept the widow’s refusal of his pursuit, raped her (Alciph. Farm. 35 [Epiphyllis to Amaracinê], 3.37).

Not least by Zeus’s example with Hera, hanging her from Olympus (Apollod. Bib. 2.7.1). Augustine’s mother, Monica, told wives to endure such beatings with servility (Aug. Conf. 9.9); Quint. Curt. 8.8.3 portrays wives having to endure husbands’ beatings as a matter of course (set in Alexander’s day).

E.g., Val. Max. 6.3.9 (where a man cudgeled his wife to death for drinking wine). A tyrant such as Periander (who allegedly killed his pregnant wife in anger, then slew his concubines for goading him on, Diog. Laert. 1.94) is, however, exceptional; the context shows Periander ready to kill men no less cheaply. People in the empire also knew of the Indian custom of widow burning (Diod. Sic. 17.91.3; Cic. Tusc. 5.27.78).

In the myth in Apollod. Bib. 3.15.1, the Areopagus banished a man who accidentally killed his wife.

Philost. Vit. soph. 2.1.555–56.

Tac. Ann. 4.22. Patterns of abuse may have varied by region, and textual evidence for physically abusing wives is far less abundant than that for beating children and slaves, suggesting that it may have been less acceptable.

E.g., Xen. Oec. 7.16, 22, 31. Nature fitted women for indoor existence, and men for outside (7.22–25, 30–31, 39), but both genders were equal in memory, diligence, and the potential for self-control (7.26–27).

See Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 742, on Aristotle. He denied that virtues were the same for both genders, though both genders could express virtue; thus a man displays courage by commanding, and a woman by obeying (Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 64, §86). Stoics would agree in principle with assigning virtue according to each entity’s appropriate nature (Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.3–4), though their conclusions differed from Aristotle’s.

Arist. Pol. 1.2.12, 1254b.

Arist. Pol. 2.2.15, 1264b. Aristotle did derive the husband-wife relationship from nature and instinct (N.E. 8.12.7, 1162a); virtues differed by gender (Pol. 3.2.10, 1277b). Deslauriers, “Difference,” argues, however, that Aristotle’s treatment of gender in his biological treatises differs from his treatment in the Politics. Some advocated marrying equals but intended this in terms of the same social class (Aeschylus Prom. 901–2).

Aelian Nat. An. 11.26 (among his analogies is the dragon; fortunately, not ants or bees). Xen. Oec. 7.33 uses the queen bee analogy for wives staying inside.

In Hippocratic writers, see King, “Gender roles: Medicine,” 745. Soranus, by contrast, avers that the two have analogous characteristics despite differences in particulars (Gynec. 3.prol. 1–5; 3.12.45). For a survey of medical writers on women, see, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 85–97, 215–34.

E.g., Soph. Antig. 677–80; Virg. Aen. 11.734; Apollod. Bib. 1.8.2 (cf. 3.9.2); Debate of a Montanist and an Orthodox (MOT 125, the orthodox speaking; Bray, Corinthians, 106).

E.g., Xen. Lac. 3.4; Livy 25.36.9; 28.19.13; Cic. Mil. 21.55; Virg. Aen. 12.52–53; Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.17; Sil. It. 1.445; Dio Chrys. Or. 2.29; Aul. Gel. 17.21.33; Lucian Dial. D. 414 (6/20, Menippus and Aeacus 2); Heliod. Eth. 4.21; Aphth. Progymn. 5, “On Refutation,” 29S, 13R; perhaps Lam. Rab. 4:19, §22; Quint. Decl. 368.3 (textually suspect). Phaedrus 4.17.6 could be either physical strength or courage. Men apparently considered such delicateness attractive (Char. Chaer. 2.2.2); for a major exception, see discussion on Amazons at Acts 8:27.

E.g., Eurip. Med. 928; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 78.17; Let. Aris. 250; cf. b. B. Meṣiʿa 59a. This included reluctance to inflict punishment (Aeschylus Prom. 79) and softhearted love (4 Macc 15:5).

E.g., Cic. Mur. 12.27 (infirmitatem consilii); Livy 28.19.13; Val. Max. 9.1.3 (imbecillitas mentis); Let. Aris. 250; Philo Good Person 117 (nature gave women “little sense,” LCL, 9:77). A good wife can manage the household so long as her husband instructs her properly (Xen. Oec. 3.10, 14–16; 7.10), including where to put things (9.1), especially since Greek men often married women when the latter were very young (3.13; 7.4–5). They were more easily deceived (e.g., Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145CD; Test. Job 26:6 [OTP]/26:7–8 [Kraft]). Cf. in later Islamic thought Eickelman, Middle East, 205–6.

E.g., Aeschylus Suppl. 468–89 (esp. 489), 748–49; Xen. Cyr. 5.5.33; Gen. Rab. 22:6; perhaps 1 Pet 3:7. This is especially relevant in court petitions, where women claim that their weakness disposes them to greater vulnerability toward oppression (A. L. Connolly in Horsley, Documents, 4:131–33, §30, esp. p. 131, citing P.Flor. 1.58; P.Oxy. 34.2713; 1.71, col. 2; P.Amh. 2.141); cf. also in traditional North African society (Eickelman, Middle East, 243).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 8.24.4–5; Livy 34.7.14; Plut. Rom. Q. 108, Mor. 289E; Quint. Decl. 272.3–5, 9; 338.8; see note on court petitions above.

Meeks, “Androgyne,” 170–73 (esp. 170).

Xen. Symp. 2.9, reporting Socrates’s view (if, as is likely, γνώμης involves intellect and not simply decisiveness).

Crates Ep. 28. Diogenes Laertius, however, treats women’s nature as inferior in some sense in the tradition (Diog. Laert. 6.2.65).

See Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 82–85.

Porph. Marc. 33.511–16.

Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 38.26–27.

Plato had also argued for similar education, though accepting women’s natural inferiority (Meeks, “Androgyne,” 170). Many note Musonius’s support for women’s education (e.g., Ward, “Musonius,” 288), though Meeks, Moral World, 46, notes that we do not know of any women among his students.

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.8–23 (and this only because nature fitted women best for this, but the roles could be interchangeable at times, lines 23–31).

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 42.35; p. 44.1–4 (a good Stoic “argument from nature”).

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.31–37; p. 48.1–26; cf. 3, p. 40.6–7, 10–12, 17–35; p. 42.1–29; 4, p. 44.23–35. Aristotle argued that virtue differed by gender (Arist. Pol. 3.2.10, 1277b).

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 48.21–23. Musonius is on the defensive here against criticisms that advanced philosophy wastes the time of women, who should attend to domestic chores (see 3, p. 42.11–17, esp. 13–15).

Mus. Ruf. 14, p. 92.38; p. 94.1.

Sen. Y. Dial. 6.16.1. Some of his portrayals of women’s virtue may be designed to support male virtues or challenge male vice (cf. Wilcox, “Grief”).

See Lavery, “Never Seen”; cf. Sevenster, Seneca, 192–96; Sen. Y. Dial. 6.7.3.

As that of children, tyrants, and animals also is (Marc. Aur. 5.11). The image need not imply a universal; Xenophon thought that Greeks had better “souls,” i.e., were better equipped for battle, than Persians (Anab. 3.1.23). In the mid-second century B.C.E., Stoics had begun moving away from their earlier political egalitarianism (Erskine, Stoa, 181).

Meeks, Urban Christians, 23. (This claim refers to disciples, not aristocratic girls in households where Stoics could be hired to teach.)

See Manning, “Seneca”; Arthur, “Classics,” 402.

Meeks, Moral World, 60–61 (also noting that the Stoic emphasis on Stoic wisdom—which only the elite could afford to pay for—supported hierarchy of a different sort).

Balch, “Household Codes,” 31; see further idem, Wives, 143–49.

A third- to second-century B.C.E. treatise in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 104, §107.

Xen. Oec. 7.26–27.

Xen. Oec. 7.22–25, 30–33, 39. A wife could prove more honorable in her sphere than the husband in his (7.42).

Xenophon was certainly not egalitarian from a modern perspective, as we shall see, but he surpassed most of his Athenian contemporaries, perhaps partly because of Spartan influence or his cultural versatility. Many male Christian writers in late antiquity and afterward viewed women as weaker intellectually or morally, grounding treatment of women in this perspective rather than in physical differences (Xenophon’s basis for the domestic/external role distinction). Cf. the useful survey of data in Doriani, “History.”

Cf. Polyb. 2.56.9 (in light of 2.56.7–8); Cic. Fam. 16.27.1; Livy 34.2.13–14; Dio Chrys. Or. 3.34; b. Šabb. 33b; also Seneca in Lavery, “Never Seen.” Cf. Gemünden, “Passionnelle” (though the rationality/passion divide is not limited to its gender associations).

E.g., Virgil Aen. 4.569–70 (cf. 5.656–63); Let. Aris. 250.

Over petty matters (Livy 6.34.7) or regardless of consequences (Polyb. 2.8.12). Never mind that moralists could advise wives to remain silent during husbands’ rage (Plut. Bride 37, Mor. 143C)! They were harder to reconcile than men because they were made from bone instead of earth (ʾAbot R. Nat. 9, §24 B).

E.g., the speaker in Tac. Ann. 3.33 (warning of vicious abuse of power). Cf. Publ. Syr. 6: they only love or hate. Through building up anger and hatred in their hearts, women often eventually go insane (Lucian Disowned 30).

Tac. Ann. 14.4 (believing what was appealing).

So Shelton, Romans, 301–3, esp. 301 (comparing women fainting in the Victorian era, when it invited sympathy; for discussions of gender-conceptualized “hysteria” and idealized illness in nineteenth-century life, see Curtis, Faith, 38–50; Capps, Village Psychiatrist, 15–22).

E.g., Polyb. 36.15.2; Cic. Verr. 2.5.31.81; Off. 2.16.55–57; Val. Max. 9.1.ext. 1, 7; Sen. E. Controv. 1.pref. 8–10; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 104.34; Mus. Ruf. 9, p. 70.11–12, 24–25; Dio Chrys. Or. 6.11; 62.6; 70.2; Aul. Gel. 3.1; Lucian Anach. 25. Cf. Plutarch’s apparent portrayal of Marc Antony in terms of feminine (and Greek) traits (so Russell, “Emasculation”).

See Satlow, “Construction of Masculinity.”

E.g., Xen. Lac. 11.3; Diod. Sic. 32.10.9; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 9.7.2; 10.28.3; Polyb. 3.108.5; 6.37.11; 32.13.6–7; 32.15.9; 36.15.1–2; 38.12.9; Val. Max. 2.7.9; 9.13.praef.; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 70.6; 96.4; Med. 42; Sil. It. 9.263; 13.313; Plut. Alex. 47.1; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 1.21; Hrk. 23.19; 45.8; Apul. Metam. 5.22; Ps.-Callisth. Alex. 1.46. Exceptions, however (e.g., Val. Max. 3.2.2, 15; 3.2.ext. 8–9; 5.4.6; Pliny Ep. 7.19.7; Iambl. V.P. 31.194; 4 Macc 16:5, 14), persuaded some that courage could be learned and was not limited to one gender (Xen. Symp. 2.12; Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 40.33–35); a rhetorician could argue either side (Theon Progymn. 10.57–59 with 10.62–65).

E.g., Polyb. 30.18.5–6; 32.15.7.

E.g., Cic. Fam. 5.16.6; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 99.1–2; Dial. 6.7.3. See further comment on Acts 8:2.

E.g., Diod. Sic. 10.24.2 (“even” [κἄν] for women); Vell. Paterc. 2.26.3; 2.87.1; 2.88.3; Plutarch’s Bravery of Women, Mor. 242E–263C; Libanius Narration 15. This was more common among the Gauls (Diod. Sic. 5.32.2).

Philod. Crit. col. 21b.13–14.

Philod. Crit. col. 22a.

Philod. Crit. col. 22a.9–11.

Philod. Crit. col. 22b.

Dobson, “Depiction.” He appreciated an intelligent wife (Pliny Ep. 1.16.6, though wondering whether her husband cultivated her intellect or simply wrote in her name) and appreciated his own wife for her intelligence (4.19.2, as well as her housewife skills), expressed in delighting in his oratory (4.19.3–5).

Safrai, “Home,” 764; e.g., b. Taʿan. 2:14. They also showed concern to protect a woman from rape (m. Ter. 8:12).

E.g., Nagar and Torgeë, “Characteristics” (but cf. the arguments for some distinctions in Peleg, “Gender and Ossuaries”). Unusual as it seems from a modern perspective, however, ancients often allowed equality as persons without providing for equality of role. Still, some ancients did not accept even equality of human worth (e.g., Eurip. Iph. Aul. 1393–94).

Wegner, Chattel, 36–37, suggesting that soon after puberty the girl would be married. Once she reached majority or had been married once, she was freed from patria potestas, and hence her consent was necessary for a betrothal (Cohen, Law, 298).

E.g., Artem. Oneir. 1.15; 4.10; Sipre Deut. 138.2.1; 141.2; b. Ber. 5b; praying for a son in Pesiq. Rab Kah. 9:2; y. Ber. 9:3, §6. See esp. Safrai, “Home,” 750 (esp. the citation of b. B. Bat. 16b, bar.: those with sons are blessed, but woe to those with daughters); cf. Derrett, Audience, 31–32. This preference may reflect the daughter’s marrying and being lost to her family of origin (Gen. Rab. 26:4).

E.g., Exod. Rab. 1:13. Ilan, Women, 44–48, argues that the birth of a daughter is a disappointment in all the Jewish sources but that Jews did not seek to reduce the number of daughters artificially as pagans did. On Greek child abandonment (probably of daughters somewhat more often than sons despite the controversy on that point), see comment on Acts 7:19.

E.g., Cicero’s love for Tullia (Fam. 14.5.1; 14.18 title); her death crushed him, as he would have preferred his own death (9.11.1).

Plut. Bride 36, Mor. 143B.

Mullins, “Secular Roles”; idem, “Religious Roles.”

Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 50.

See Levine, “Women in Tobit.”

See Sawyer, “Judith’s Performance”; cf. Schüssler Fiorenza, Memory, 116.

So van der Horst, “Women in Liber” (cf. also idem, “Beobachtungen”); Burnette-Bletsch, “Jael,” notes that L.A.B. 31 expands Jael’s role (suggesting that weak Israel in the author’s day would identify with Jael). DesCamp, “Women,” even suggests a woman author. Still, negative aspects appear; e.g., the depiction of Tamar in Biblical Antiquities is androcentric (Polaski, “Taming Tamar”).

See Endres, Interpretation, 194, 217–18 (cf. also 51–84). Cf. also Leah (Jub. 36:23).

See Aleixandre, “Mujeres.” For Sarah, see, e.g., 1Qap Gen^ar XX, 2–8 (see also comment in Fitzmyer, Apocryphon, 120); Test. Ab. 3:5; 5:14; esp. 6:1–8 A (cf. also 6:6–13 B); ʾAbot R. Nat. 26, §54 B; Gen. Rab. 20:6; 41:2; 52:5, 13; Num. Rab. 14:11; Pesiq. Rab. 43:4; Urbach, Sages, 1:155; she is idealized in Josephus (see Amaru, “Women”). For Miriam, cf., e.g., Sipre Deut. 305.3.1; b. Šabb. 35a; Taʿan. 9a; Num. Rab. 1:2; 13:20; Song Rab. 4:5, §2; Tg. Neof. 1 on Exod 1:21; on Num 21:1.

E.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:6; Exod. Rab. 1:12; Lev. Rab. 21:11; 36:5; Num. Rab. 11:2; Pesiq. Rab. 12:5; 15:9; cf. Pesiq. Rab Kah. Sup. 5:2; Tg. Neof. 1 on Exod 17:12; Tg. Ps.-J. on Exod 40:8.

E.g., 1 En. 69:6; Philo Creation 151, 167; Sib. Or. 1.42–45; ʾAbot R. Nat. 1 A; 9, §25 B; 42, §117 B; y. Sanh. 2:4, §2; Šabb. 2:6, §2; Gen. Rab. 17:8; 18:2; 21:5; Lev. Rab. 18:2; Num. Rab. 10:8; Gr. Ezra 2:16; see also Greiner, “Eve”; texts in Scroggs, Adam, 21. Pandora is assimilated to Eve at times (see, e.g., Johnston, “Interpretations,” 524). Eve’s portrayal in L.A.E. (e.g., 10:1; 18:1; 35; 38:1–2; 44:1–5) is pathetic (also the parallel Apoc. Moses, e.g., 11:1–2; 14; 18:5–6; 21:6; 25:1–2; 29:17; 31–32; 42); cf. her role later in Islamic tradition (Delaney, “Seeds,” 40–41). But both Adam and Eve are deceived in some texts (1 En. 32:6; Sipre Deut. 323.6.2), and sometimes Eve appears favorably (b. Sanh. 39a); for both sides on Eve in rabbinic literature, see Gradwohl, “Frau.”

So Ilan, “Women’s Studies” (also arguing that the more radical approach of Jesus and his earliest followers can fit within early Judaism’s diversity). Cf. Swidler, Women, 56–82, albeit with a heavier emphasis on the negative.

So Bengtsson, “Kvinnor.”

The topos of a weak man who is a slave to a bad wife (e.g., unable to divorce her) appears elsewhere (e.g., Plut. Virt. 2, Mor. 100E).

E.g., Mek. Pisha 1, lines 28ff. (Lauterbach, 1:3); Mek. Bah. 8, lines 28ff. (Lauterbach, 2:259); Gen. Rab. 1:15.

4Q270 7 I, 13–15.

With, e.g., Witherington, Sage, 91. Although Sirach seems less hellenized than many later documents, some have attributed its “patriarchal” approach to gender to Hellenism (Cook, “Perspective on Women”).

E.g., van der Horst, “Women in Testament of Job”; Spittler, “Introduction,” 833, 835–36; cf. also van der Horst, “Beobachtungen” (also listing L.A.E. 15–30 as positive, which does not persuade me, though I agree with him that Sirach, Josephus, and Philo are negative).

E.g., Garrett, “Weaker Sex,” esp. 57–58. The dating and source of this work are also still debated.

Ilan, “Frauen”; Swidler, Women, 126–30 (also for other groups, 29–55); see esp. Wegner, Chattel; idem, “Tragelaphos”; cf. Neusner, Beginning, 32. Ilan, “Women’s Studies,” even allows that rabbinic Judaism may have clamped down on women in response to Christianity, but Christianity showed a similar trend in the same period. Contrasting the OT period, Neusner in Tosefta (ed. Neusner), 3:x, suggests that, while respected, women in Qumran and the Tannaim lack significant rights.

See Langer, “Vermögensrecht.”

Swidler, Women, 167–68. The legal genre may account for some of the impression.

E.g., Witherington, Women, 10; cf. Neusner, Beginning, 59.

Cf. m. Qidd. 1:1; Wegner, Chattel, 3–4, 20–34, 40–70, 114, 171. Women functioned as a legal hybrid (7–8), somewhat like slaves and others in Roman law.

Wegner, Chattel, 34–38, 70–95 (e.g., property ownership, 87–91). See, e.g., Babatha’s retention of property (p. Yadin 16, ca. 127 C.E.; Cotton and Greenfield, “Property”).

Falk, “Law,” 516–17. Anything she found belongs to him (m. Ketub. 6:1).

M. Hor. 3:7. Restoring what is lost to the husband is also a higher priority than what is lost to the wife (m. Hor. 3:7; t. b. Meṣiʿa 2:32).

Wegner, Chattel, 148–67, esp. 162–65; cf. Swidler, Women, 130–39; y. Ḥag. 2:6, §2; dangers in b. Pesaḥ. 111a; pious caution in Pesiq. Rab Kah. 12:15. Strictest tradition prohibited eating with a menstruating woman (t. Šabb. 1:14). Qumran was, however, stricter (cf. 11QT XLV–XLVII; McNamara, Judaism, 141).

Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Background Commentary, 64, 130–31; cf. Gen 31:35. Some Greeks apparently believed that intercourse rendered a woman impure (Diog. Laert. 8.1.43) or led to impurity more generally (cf. Porph. Marc. 28.439–40; Alciph. Court. 1 [Phrynê to Praxiteles] frg. 3), certainly by the standards of some temples (deSilva, Honor, 251); for Israelites, both genders might be temporarily impure (e.g., 4Q284 1 I, 7). For Greeks, childbirth polluted because blood was shed (Clark, “Childbirth”; cf. Theophr. Char. 16.9).

On Philo, see Baer, Categories; Sly, Perception; briefly, Meeks, “Androgyne,” 176–77.

Mattila, “Wisdom.” Philo may even adapt grammatical gender to raise male over female (Baynes, “Transformation”); on his negative use of female terminology, see also Baer, Categories, 65–66. Male is more complete than, and superior to, female (41, citing Philo Spec. Laws 1.200–201); female is “an imperfect male” (41, citing Philo QE 1.7; QG 1.25); and nature places men before women (Spec. Laws 2.124).

Cf. Conway, “Gender”; Baer, Categories, 55–64.

So Niehoff, “Mother.” On Philo’s negative use of the feminine in allegory, see, e.g., Baer, Categories, 38–44. He normally used “Eve” for “sense-perception” (LCL, 1:xxv, citing Philo Creation 165; Alleg. Interp. 2.38, 70; 3.50, 60; Cher. 57; cf. also Peinador, “Protoevangelio”), though “Eve” could also mean “life” (LCL, 1:xxv, citing Philo Agr. 95; Heir 52); “Adam” often stands for the mind (Creation 165; Alleg. Interp. 1.25; 2.13; 3.50, 246; Cher. 10, 57; Plant. 46; Heir 52; Dreams 2.70).

See Taylor, “Virgin Mothers”; cf. Kraemer, “Monastic Women” (their unmarried status made them less female for Philo); Baer, Categories, 98–101; Golberg, “Choruses.” On virginity and asexuality, cf., e.g., Orph. H. 32.7, 10; 42.4.

Meeks, Urban Christians, 24, citing Philo Embassy 319–20; on females becoming more male, see Baer, Categories, 45–49, 69 (esp. 45). Similarly, Seneca praises his mother for her manliness (Grant, Social History, 34, citing Sen. Y. Consol. 16), and Porphyry encourages his wife that she can be virtually male (Porph. Marc. 33.511–16). It is this line of tradition, rather than a Galilean Jesus, that is echoed in G. Thom. 114.

Sterling, Ancestral Philosophy, 199–219.

See Mayer-Schärtel, “Frauenbild” (esp. on Jos. Ant. 15.259–60).

Josephus adds to the biblical text that there are many causes for divorcing women (Ant. 4.253; though this may be to align with the more lenient opinion of his day despite the dominance of Shammaite thought on the question in Pharisaism; see Keener, Marries Another, 38–40); Josephus divorced a wife for displeasing behavior (Life 426) after two of their three children died. He also warned of wives’ power over husbands through desire (cf. Ant. 11.51–55).

Bailey, “Portrayal,” 155–56.

Ibid., esp. 176.

E.g., Feldman, “Roncace’s Portraits.”

E.g., Roncace, “Portraits.”

Jos. Ant. 5.146–47.

E.g., Jos. Ant. 18.252–55.

Jos. War 2.121.

For virtue as the same for both genders, see, e.g., Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 44.10–35; p. 48.1, 4, 8, 13; Crates Ep. 28 (to Hipparchia); Antisthenes in Diog. Laert. 6.1.12; on Musonius, see further Lutz, “Musonius,” 30. Both have equal authority to practice self-control (Xen. Oec. 7.27). Conversely, Spartan boys could outdo others’ women in modesty (Lac. 3.4).

E.g., Sir 7:19; 26:1–4, 13–18. Abba Hilkiah’s wife was as righteous as he (b. Taʿan. 23b), and Abba Judan’s wife was even more righteous than he (Lev. Rab. 5:4).

E.g., Sir 25:13, 16–26; 26:5–12.

Gen. Rab. 17:7.

Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 42.7–8. She even does things considered slaves’ kind of work (δουλικά; p. 42.8).

As also noted by others (e.g., Lincoln, Ephesians, 359).

North, “Mare.” Though Plato tended to be sympathetic toward women (far more than Aristotle and many others), even he generally believed women inferior to men (Pomeroy, Goddesses, 230).

E.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 4.66.2–4.67.1.

Animi matrona virilis (Ovid Fasti 2.847; cf. similarly Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 4.82.3).

Arist. Poet. 15.3, 1454a (LCL, 55). Among “appropriate” characters, only a man may be brave or clever (15.4, 1454a).

In many respects. Cf., e.g., the post-Aristotelian shift in the use of “virtue” (ἀρετή) in the Hellenistic era (on which see Finkelberg, “Virtue”).

Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 543; cf. Manetho Aeg. frg. 35.3; 36. Not all concurred with this more Stoic perspective, but it was probably widely known among intellectuals.

Publ. Syr. 20.

E.g., Hesiod W.D. 375.

E.g., Babr. 22.13–15 (perhaps a later addition); Phaedrus 2.2.1–2.

E.g., Apollod. Bib. 3.9.2 (Atalanta seduced by the golden apples; also in Ovid Metam. 10.560–680; Libanius Narration 33; 34); ʾAbot R. Nat. 3 A; Gen. Rab. 45:5.

Pliny Ep. 7.24.5 (on aristocratic women’s idleness).

Tiberius in Tac. Ann. 4.40.

E.g., Theophr. Char. 28.3; Tac. Ann. 3.33–34 (including, though less harshly, the more “progressive” speaker, 3.34); Jos. War 2.121; b. Soṭah 3:4; Wegner, Chattel, 159–62; probably Diod. Sic. 1.59.3–4. Cf. also in traditional Islamic village perceptions in the Mediterranean region (Delaney, “Seeds,” 41; Eickelman, Middle East, 205–6); Muslim Somalis believe women spiritually weaker and hence more susceptible to demons (Lewis, “Possession,” 211).

Hom. Od. 15.419–22; Char. Chaer. 1.4.1–2. Thus one husband guarded his wife carefully, but at a funeral she was seduced (Lysias Or. 1.6–8 [Murder of Eratosthenes]). That the woman’s greater sexual susceptibility suggests that men engaged in intercourse more casually somehow fails to generate a corresponding verdict against male immorality.

Aeschines Tim. 185.

E.g., Sir 25:21; 26:9; 1 Esd 4:32, 34; Pss. Sol. 16:7–8; Test. Jud. 15:5–6; Test. Reub. 3:11–12; 5:1–5; 6:1; Jos. War 2.121; Ant. 7.130. See further Eron, “Mastery”; Rosen-Zvi, “Bilhah”; cf. sources in Keener, Matthew, 187, esp. n. 82.

b. Taʿan. 24a (Soncino 122); cf. a woman’s prayer in b. Soṭah 22a. Even the most virtuous man who counted money into a woman’s hand so as to gaze at her was destined for Gehinnom (b. Ber. 16a, bar.).

Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 95.21.

Men. Rhet. 1.3, 364.1–2; although this source is from the late third to the early fourth century C.E., Winter, Wives, 85, reports that the office existed widely in the first century.

Men. Rhet. 1.3, 364.2–5 (although I wonder to what extent this prohibition would have been enforced, especially with regard to resident aliens and especially in the first century; see comment on women in business at Acts 18:3). Women were also excluded from particular festivals (Men. Rhet. 1.3, 364.5–7).

E.g., Aul. Gel. 1.23.7–10 (along with curious and gullible); Lucian Prof. P.S. 23; Sent. Syr. Men. 336–39; Gen. Rab. 18:2 (along with jealous, flirtatious, etc.); 45:5 (along with envious, greedy, etc.); 70:11; 80:5 (again with the other characteristics); Deut. Rab. 6:11.

So, e.g., Babr. 16.10; Avianus Fables 15–16. Women’s speech was obscene, one said, because their tongues were formed from the same material as their private parts (Phaedrus 4.15).

Livy 6.34.6. Unable to fight like warriors, women simply chattered and contended with words (Hom. Il. 20.251–55).

Sent. Syr. Men. 118–21 (OTP 2:595).

E.g., Pliny E. N.H. 7.2.17–18; for the related issue of poisoning, cf. Livy 8.18.1–12. Cf. the curse tablets noted in Witherington, Corinthians, 18.

In b. Sanh. 67a; cf. also b. Ber. 53a; Pesaḥ. 110b; 111a; Moore, Judaism, 2:137; Murray, “Magical Female.” See earlier m. ʾAbot 2:7, attributed to Hillel: “the more wives, the more sorceries.”

See Lesses, “Sorceresses,” arguing that these narratives are more nuanced than the claim that most women are witches.

Ilan, Women, 221–25. The association also appears in pagan sources (Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 124–26, 255–58). Barred from other forms of power, women might have been more inclined to folk magic, but the preponderance of female-targeted love charms in magical papyri might argue against this, at least for those able to afford official formulas.

Gen. Rab. 17:6 (based exegetically on the first letter of his name appearing at her creation).

Test. Ab. 9:8 B. Recension A, perhaps earlier, does not report that this soul was female or 10:5–15 B’s report of a wicked woman who murdered her daughter. Cf. perhaps Eccl 7:28, but the sense is not clear.

Indeed, such reactions are reported even for the republic (Plut. S. Rom., Cato the Elder 3, Mor. 198D).

Braund, “Misogamist,” suggests that Juv. Sat. 6, in fact, opposes marriage rather than women. Most scholars, however, view Juvenal as misogynist.

E.g., Thucyd. 2.45.2; Lysias Or. 3.6, §97; Demosth. Mid. 79; Aristocr. 141; Val. Max. 7.1.1 (pudicitia); Lucan C.W. 2.360; Plut. Bride 17, Mor. 140C. A respectable matron was ashamed to go by herself among men (Hom. Od. 18.184). Cf. even in the novels (Wiersma, “Novel”). In Alciph. Fish. 4 (Cymothoüs to Tritonis), 1.4, ¶3, modesty includes staying home with the husband rather than being with elite women; in Aelian Farmers 9 (Chremes to Parmenon), a hardworking farmer complains that even courtesans pretend coyness. For ancient valuing of modesty, see Winter, Wives, 101–2; cf. female shame in Delaney, “Seeds,” 40.

Certainly in the classical era, e.g., Aeschylus Suppl. 202–3; Xen. Lac. 1.3 (most Greek city-states, except Sparta in 1.4); an inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 11, §22; also Pomeroy, Goddesses, 74; Llewelyn-Jones, Tortoise, 165; for gentleness, see, e.g., Jub. 36:23. Also expected in Hellenistic marriage contracts (Verner, Household, 65); cf. also later rabbis (Gen. Rab. 18:2).

Hallett, “Role,” 241–42.

So Hom. Od. 19.91 (on Melantho’s cruelty). Later rabbis felt that a husband not angry with such a wife was a sinner (Num. Rab. 9:12).

Aul. Gel. 10.6. In the early empire, the perception of Agrippina the Elder’s arrogance and ambition would prove fatal (Tac. Ann. 4.12).

Val. Max. 6.3.12. For the ancient prejudice against “‘headstrong and arrogant’ women,” see Winter, Wives, 65–66.

Sen. E. Controv. 2.7.3. Spartan boys also displayed modesty by looking at the ground (Xen. Lac. 3.4).

Dio Cass. 54.16.4–5. Cicero’s wife was not meek, but she acted with noble demeanor (Plut. Cic. 20.2).

See Winter, Wives, passim.

Plut. Bride 37, Mor. 143C.

Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece”; Stahlmann, “Gender Roles”; cf. Keener, “Marriage,” 687–91. Even when comedy inverted such roles, it played on them (James, “Constructions”).

Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 740; age seven in Rome, Stahlmann, “Gender Roles,” 743. Cf. the strong differentiation in rearing boys and girls (including girls’ obedience) among the Garrese in Sicily in Giovannini, “Chastity,” 67.

Dio Chrys. Or. 3.70 (LCL, 1:137).

Balsdon, “Women,” 31. Although Romans often viewed marriage as unhappy, a happier perspective of mutual affection grew from the late republic into the empire (Stahlmann, “Gender Roles”). Unhappy marriages are the majority in some societies (e.g., Schapera, Life, 277).

See Kleiner, “Women”; e.g., CIL 6.10230 (= ILS 8394; FIRA 3.70; in Sherk, Empire, §184, p. 242); cf. Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 133–47.

Alciph. Farm. 39 (Dryades to Melionê), 3.41, ¶2 (LCL, 147).

With, e.g., Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741; cf. Winter, Wives, 160; Reden, “Work,” 743; earlier, Xen. Oec. 7.33, 39. For such domestic activity, see, e.g., the distaff or loom in Prov 31:19; Hom. Il. 3.126–27; Virg. Aen. 8.407–15; Ovid Metam. 4.35; 6.26–145; food preparation in Test. Ab. 4:3 B. Xen. Oec. 7.17–22 notes that wives do indoor tasks and husbands outdoor tasks but both are necessary.

E.g., Ps.-Melissa Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 83); Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 40.10; p. 42.26; 4, p. 44.14.

Xen. Mem. 2.2.4. We must weigh this, however, with Demosth. Neaer. 122: high-class prostitutes are for pleasure, concubines or attendants for daily needs, but wives for bearing and rearing legitimate offspring.

Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741. In some modern Mediterranean culture, see Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 48, 50–51.

Goodman, State, 37; Safrai, “Home,” 761, 764; see esp. m. Ketub. 5:5. For washing, cf. Jeremias, Jerusalem, 18.

Perhaps even in LXX adaptation of the Hebrew (so Brayford, “Shame,” though not all concur).

B. Yebam. 63ab.

The Pastorals’ social ethics do reflect an explicit apologetic concern (1 Tim 5:14; 6:1; Titus 2:5, 8, 10; see esp. Padgett, “Rationale”).

Horsley, Documents, 3:33–34, §8; indeed, she was ready to find him another wife when she could not bear (36). Cf. similarly ibid., 40, §11 (although obedience is not explicit here).

Cf. the common view of the virtue of wifely obedience in Plato Meno 71 (in Allen, Philosophy, 98); Quint. Decl. 262.8; see further Verner, Household, 30–33. Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 47, cite the New Comedy poet Philemon: “It is a good wife’s duty, O Nikostrate, to be devoted to her husband, but in subordination; a wife who prevails is a great evil.” Spartan women could be viewed as exceptional (Plut. S. Sp. Wom., Gorgo 5, Mor. 240E), but even they obeyed their fathers and husbands (S. Sp. Wom., anonymous 22, Mor. 242B).

Eurip. El. 1052–53 (in this case opposing Clytemnestra’s killing her husband to avenge his killing of their daughter).

Hom. Od. 1.356–59; she complies with his wise saying in 1.360–61. Arthur, “Early Greece,” 15, however, emphasizes the “mutual respect and affection” in the marriage of Telemachus’s parents. Ajax expects his bed partner to obey “in everything” (Soph. Ajax 526–28), but in this case she is also his slave.

Arist. N.E. 8.11.4, 1161a.

Xen. Oec. 10.1. For Aristotle on the husband ruling, see, e.g., Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 63, §86.

Xen. Oec. 3.10. She must be taught (3.14–16); once a particular man found his wife teachable (7.10), he began to teach her (7.11–22).

Verner, Household, 38, 64–65 (some as late as the first century B.C.E.). “Wives are expected to be domestic, socially retiring, chaste, and submissive to their husbands” (65). Collins, Corinthians, 521, cites first- and second-century B.C.E. marriage contracts that list first among a wife’s duties subjection to her husband (P.Giss. 21; P.Tebt. 1.104). She could not spend a night or a day away from home without his consent (P.Tebt. 104.27–28; BGU 1052.25–27).

Baer, Categories, 69.

Philo Hypoth. 7.3, 14, as noted by Meeks, “Androgyne,” 177.

Girls could marry at, e.g., thirteen (Ovid Metam. 9.714) or fifteen (Xen. Oec. 7.4–5). Soranus Gynec. 1.8.33 suggests that fourteen is the natural age for first intercourse (cf. also Nin. Rom. frg. 1, A-3); others considered it an ideal age for beauty (Xen. Eph. Anthia 1.2). Palestinian Jewish women apparently married initially at about twelve to eighteen (Jeffers, “Families,” 134–35; Chapman, “Marriage,” 186), but men often at about eighteen to twenty (m. ʾAbot 5:21; b. Qidd. 29b–30a; Eccl. Rab. 3:2, §3; Lam. Rab. 3:27, §9; cf. Safrai, “Home,” 748); cf. a Diaspora Jewish marriage at about twenty-two (CIJ 1:409, §553), but some surely married later (cf. Thornton, “Bachelors”). Girls might be betrothed virtually from birth (Cohen, Law, 297–98), and rabbis ideally wanted them married as soon after puberty as possible (e.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 11:6; cf. also Test. Levi 9:10). Some claimed fifteen for Assyria (Nin. Rom. frg. 1, A-3) and seven for India (Arrian Ind. 9.1).

Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 131.

Soranus Gynec. 2.12.19.

Plut. Bride 2, Mor. 138D.

Hesiod W.D. 695–97; also Wagner-Hasel, “Roles: Greece,” 741; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 55. For a younger marriage, see Demosth. Boeot. 2.12; not all young women were happy with considerably older men (Alciph. Farm. 7 [Phoebianê to Anicetus], 1.28; Court. 17 [Leontium to Lamia], 2.2; Eccl. Rab. 11:9, §1). Some ancients appealed to astrology to decide relative ages for marriage (Ptolemy Tetrab. 4.5.182–83)!

Hesiod W.D. 698.

See, e.g., Ovid Metam. 9.714 and other sources above.

Some scholars argue that Roman men averaged about five years older than their wives, who were usually married between twelve and eighteen (Jeffers, “Families,” 134; idem, World, 238), and that girls usually married “in their early teens” (Ferguson, Backgrounds, 55; and Hopkins, “Age at Marriage,” which he cites; cf., e.g., Quint. Inst. pref. 4). Others argue that lower-class Roman women married in their late teens and men in their mid- to late twenties, with a ten-year gap on average (larger among aristocrats; Shaw, “Age”; for men marrying at twenty-five or later, see Saller, “Age”).

Cf. Verner, Household, 33–34. One woman desires to “serve” a husband as her “master” in Virg. Aen. 4.103, 214; the Roman matron rules the domestic sphere through obedience to her husband (Publ. Syr. 108). Val. Max. 6.7.1 even praises a wife for submissively feigning ignorance of her famous husband’s affair with a slave; Cato Distichs 3.12, 20 criticizes a wife who is uncooperative and unsubmissive.

Shelton, Romans, 299.

In the first century B.C.E., Catullus noted that a wife should stay home, nodding her assent to everyone (Carm. 61.154–56); out of obedience to her parents, she should not strive with her husband (62.59–65). Literally or figuratively, a married woman’s husband (cf. Tibullus 1.2.41, 55–56) is called her dominus, “lord,” in Tibullus 1.2.7. Livy 34.7.12 claims that in 195 B.C.E. a male speaker argued that wives will remain subject so long as men live and that women themselves prefer it so.

One of his few regrets was trusting his wife with a secret (Plut. M. Cato 9.6). Nevertheless, he was said to be kind to his wife (20.1); he thought it terrible for a man to strike his wife and that it was better “to be a good husband than a great senator” (20.2 [Lives, LCL, 2:361]).

The issue, actually, was restrictions on well-to-do women’s apparel (Livy 34.1.2–5).

Livy 34.3.1–3 (playing on conventional expectations of women’s instability, 34.2.13).

Livy 34.4.18. Livy (writing shortly before the NT era) indicates that their husbands had ordered them to stay home but the wives ignored “modesty” (34.1.5).

Livy 34.2.9; even at home, however, they should leave business to men (34.2.10). Women were not to conduct business without a male guardian (34.2.11), but now, he complains, we have allowed them into the Forum (34.2.11).

Livy 34.2.10.

Livy 34.7.1–3.

See Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 130–31; also Gardner, Women, 5, who compares sons under their fathers’ authority and notes that not all men would have taken all the power that the law, in principle, granted.

Winter, Wives, 113 (following Treggiari, Marriage, 261). Cf. Carcopino, Life, 84–85 (cf. also 90–95); for upward mobility among aristocrats, Meeks, Urban Christians, 23–24.

Certainly, we do not read of the public approving of husbands’ murdering their wives for alcohol consumption in this period (as earlier in Val. Max. 6.3.9), although, in at least some regions, abuse must have continued (Aug. Conf. 9.9; y. Ketub. 11:3, §2). We may also suspect that men often did not get their ways, given the number of love spells meant to induce women to love men (e.g., PGM 36.69–101, 102–33, 134–60, 187–210, 295–311; some were designed to get them away from their husbands, PDM 61.197–216 = PGM 61.39–71).

Even an emperor (Suet. Claud. 25.5).

Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 42.7–8. Musonius, who may be guarding against antiegalitarian criticisms, lectured in basically the same era as Luke wrote.

Pliny Ep. 4.19.2. He praises a wife who would have been a model even in earlier times, always respecting her husband greatly (8.5.1).

Max. Tyre 15.7. He praises a wise ancient Greek who knew properly how to “run his household” (25.1).

Marc. Aur. 1.17.7.

Apul. Metam. 5.5. In Severian of Gabala in Pauluskommentare 261 (Bray, Corinthians, 107), woman has man over her.

Quint. Decl. 327.5.

Xen. Eph. Anthia 5.14 (probably second century C.E., though the narrative world might recall earlier mores). The title “lord” for husband appears over a wide range of sources (e.g., Gen 18:12; Hos 2:16; Virg. Aen. 4.214; Tibullus 1.2.7; Test. Ab. 5:12; 6:2, 8; 15:4 A; 4:2; 6:5 B; 1 Pet 3:6; Xen. Eph. Anthia 5.14; ʾAbot R. Nat. 1, §6 B), though such respectful titles also appear for others of superior rank, including in families (e.g., Gen 33:13–14; SPap 1:338–39, lines 1, 24; P.Giss.Univ. 21, line 11; Test. Ab. 2:7, 10; 3:5; 15:4; 18:4 A; 8:9; 10:1; 11:1; 12:3 B; Jos. Asen. 4:5/7, 9/12), or even a son of higher rank socially (P.Oxy. 123, lines 1, 26).

Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.200–201.

Jos. Ant. 1.49; 18.255; cf. similarly the emphasis in L.A.E. 26:2.

Dio Chrys. Or. 3.70.

Plut. Bride 19, Mor. 140D. Keeping to ancestral religion was a traditional value (cf. Cic. Inv. 2.22.65–66).

Plut. Bride 33, Mor. 142E (LCL, 2:323). Plutarch criticizes the Persian king for ruling others as slaves but not his own wife, of whom he should have been “master” (δεσίότης) especially (Plut. Uned. R. 2, Mor. 780C).

Plut. Bride 11, Mor. 139CD. And in this, Plutarch, as Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 134, remind us, was more benevolent than many.

Artem. Oneir. 1.24.

Ael. Arist. Def. Or. 129, §41D (LCL, 1:357). He likens the husband’s superiority to the wife and God’s superiority to mortals, the ruler’s to the citizen, and the master’s to the slave (130, §41D, undoubtedly in different ways).

Hierocles On Duties: Household Management (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 97–98).

Iambl. V.P. 11.54.

Ps.-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 83). To ground wifely submission in a general mutual submission of believers, as Ephesians does (Eph 5:21–22), was unusual and characterizes a distinctively Christian ethic of servanthood.

With, e.g., Verner, Household, 81.

Cf. the early second-century revival of conservative values in imperial households (Boatwright, “Imperial Women”). Women’s exaltation could cause male complaints even in myth (e.g., Apollod. Bib. 1.8.2).

Even some of Juvenal’s authentic examples about women (e.g., women gladiators) are extreme cases (Friedländer, Life, 1:249).

For their cruelty to slaves, see also Juv. Sat. 6.474–85. In the late republic, Cicero complained that a man who cannot deny his wife anything is no better than a slave (Cic. Parad. 36).

For conjugal love in general, see, e.g., Cic. Off. 1.17.54; Val. Max. 4.6; Philost. Hrk. 11.1; Dixon, Roman Mother, 2–3; CIJ 1:cxvi; particularly moving, Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 12, §26 (despite the formulaic character of epitaphs [e.g., Rawson, “Family,” 26], they can reflect genuine sentiment, as today).

For wives’ love, e.g., IG 14.1976 (in Horsley, Documents, 4:35, §10); Apollod. Bib. 3.12.6; Val. Max. 4.6.5; 4.6.ext. 1, 3; Petron. Sat. 111; CIJ 1:118, §166; 1:137, §195; Horsley, Documents, 3:47–48, §14.

For husbands’ love for wives, see, e.g., Hom. Il. 9.341–42; Cato Coll. Dist. 20; Val. Max. 4.3.3; 4.6.1–3; Pliny Ep. 8.5.3; Iambl. V.P. 18.84; Gr. Anth. 7.340; Ps.-Phoc. 195; b. Yebam. 62b, bar.

Xen. Oec. 7.18, 30. Xenophon clearly articulated distinct natures for distinct roles (7.16–42 passim), but he seems more progressive than most of his contemporaries.

Dio Chrys. Or. 3.122. But an earlier writer could emphasize their “partnership” while assigning outside work to men and indoor work to women (Xen. Oec. 7.30).

Mus. Ruf. 13A, p. 88.17–18; cf. “partnership” (κοινωνίαν) and “harmony” (ὁμόνοιαν) in Mus. Ruf. 13B, p. 90.6–8, 13–14.

Mus. Ruf. 12, p. 86.33–40; p. 88.1 (arguing [p. 86.39–87.1] that surely we should not expect men “to be less moral than women” [Lutz, 89]). Porph. Marc. 2.21 later claims that he married Marcella to be his “partner” (κοινωνόν), his sharer in life.

Plut. Bride 34, Mor. 143A (explaining what he thought to be the point of Roman law’s forbidding conjugal gifts).

Plut. Bride 22, Mor. 141ab. They should avoid all conflicts, but especially on their marriage bed (39, Mor. 143E).

4Q416 2 (+ 4Q417) II, 21 (trans. Abegg, 384).

See Satlow, “Love” (including the one-sided emphasis on the wife’s beauty).

b. Peʾah 8:7, §3. For traditions about R. Akiba’s relatively high view of women, see Finkelstein, Akiba, 187–91 (though cf. also Akiba’s liberal divorce policy toward wives, applicable in principle if one found another woman more beautiful; b. Giṭ. 9:10). Rabbi Meir also was said to have virtuously heeded his wife’s good counsel (b. Ber. 10a).

So b. B. Meṣiʿa 59a (Soncino 351); their successors harmonized the sayings by applying the harsher view to external (as opposed to domestic) matters or to religious (as opposed to secular) matters.

ʾAbot R. Nat. 3 A.

Sir 25:26 (for disobedience). But one should never divorce a good wife (7:19, 26).

Safrai, “Home,” 763–64 (a value also in Plut. Bride 47, Mor. 144F–145A); on treatment of wives, see further Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 507–15. God cares about peace between husband and wife (b. Ḥul. 141a; R. Ishmael in b. Šabb. 116a); some later sources even attribute family conflicts to a demon (Test. Sol. 18:15).

One rabbi helped another rabbi to divorce his wife for disrespecting him (y. Ketub. 11:3, §2). For mutual respect or honor, see also Plut. Bride 36, Mor. 143B; Sent. Sext. 238.

Safrai, “Home,” 762.

E.g., m. Ketub. 5:5–9; y. Ketub. 5:3–9:1 (e.g., 5:8, §1); Gen. Rab. 52:12; Falk, “Law,” 516; Safrai, “Home,” 761; Wegner, Chattel, 11, 74–76; Witherington, Women, 4. For Greek lists of reciprocal duties, see, e.g., Lewis, Life, 55; Verner, Household, 37–38.

Fiensy, “Composition,” 225 (citing   Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.201; m. Ketub. 4:4); even wealthy Babatha depended on a man for “contacts with authorities” (Fiensy, “Composition,” 226). See also Chapman, “Marriage,” 206–10.

Sipra Qed. par. 1.195.2.2. Some scholars argue that the rabbis held that Miriam was punished for seeking to lead (Graetz, “Miriam”).

4Q416 2 (+ 4Q417) III, 20–IV, 2.

4Q416 2 (+ 4Q417) III, 20–IV, 6.

4Q416 2 (+ 4Q417) III, 20–IV, 7.

b. Beṣah 32b, bar.; the wife having authority should be avoided (Sir 30:19).

Philo Creation 167.

Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.201.

Bowman, Documents, 311.

E.g., Iambl. V.P. 11.55–56. For their greater inclination to many religious practices, see, e.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 8.39.1; Avi-Yonah, Hellenism, 31.

Even in classical Athens (Gould, “Position in Athens,” 50). In modern Mediterranean culture, see Pizzuto-Pomaco, “Shame,” 43–45.

Croom, Clothing, 70.

For a survey, see Kraemer, Maenads, 211–17, §§78–83.

Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 259f, §§255–57. Farther west, e.g., Donahue, “Iunia Rustica.”

Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 157, §159; 260–62, §§258–64.

Ibid., 260, §258.

ILS 1259–61 in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 279f, §264a.

Gardner, Women, 67–68; Kearsley, “Asiarchs, archiereis”; R. A. Kearsley, in Llewelyn, Documents, 6:26, §1.

Gardner, Women, 68.

Simon, “Priestesses.”

E.g., Cic. Verr. 2.4.45.102; Appian Hist. rom. 5.7; Plut. Caes. 9.3; Juv. Sat. 2.87–92; Suet. Julius 6; see further Kraemer, Maenads, 11–42; cf. also Kroeger, “Cults”; Pomeroy, Goddesses, 205–6. In some different societies, cf. Eliade, Rites, 79.

Cic. Att. 1.12; Fam. 1.9.15; Plut. Caes. 10.1–3, 6; Cic. 28.2; cf. 19.3–4. Men were not, of course, excluded from most goddess cults (e.g., Plut. Rom. Q. 3, Mor. 264C).

E.g., Strabo 14.6.3. Some festivals apparently excluded women (Men. Rhet. 1.3, 364.5–7). The Hercules cult in Rome may not have excluded women (Schultz, “Prejudice”), though Sil. It. 3.22–23 says that women and pigs were kept away. The cult of Silvanus may have welcomed both genders (Dorcey, “Women”).

Although military interest may have skewed some results, many scholars say that Mithraism excluded women (Gager, Kingdom, 133; Martin, Religions, 114) or did so with a few exceptions (Klauck, Context, 141, 148); evidence for women’s involvement (e.g., David, “Exclusion”) seems exceptional. Women were relatively few in the Samothracian Mysteries (Cole, Theoi megaloi, 42).

Cf. Heyob, Isis, 81–110, and (somewhat less critically) 37–80 (see esp. 40, 52, 76, 80); Dunand, Religion en Égypte, 69–70; Barth, Ephesians, 2:656–57; see comment on Acts 18:18. In practice, women remained a minority of worshipers in the cult, though a significant one (see esp. Heyob, Isis, 81–83, 110); men largely dominated (also Kee, Origins, 91), but Isis remained a patroness for women (e.g., Horsley, Documents, 1:20, §2).

E.g., I. Magn. 215 (a.); I. Eph. 106, 1211; Harland, Associations, 46; Aurenhammer, “Sculptures,” 267–69; Finegan, Apostles, 168.

Cf. I. Magn. 215 (a.) 24–40 (Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 113–14, §115); IG 9².670 (Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 252–53, §245); Diod. Sic. 4.3.2–5 (Kraemer, Maenads, 26); Plut. Alex. 2.5; R.Q. 112, Mor. 291AB; Table 4.6.1, Mor. 671C; Artem. Oneir. 2.37; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 207; cf. further Kraemer, “Ecstatics”; idem, “Ecstasy,” esp. 80; idem, “Euoi,” esp. 233; Burkert, Religion, 164–65; Otto, Dionysus, 142, 171–80; Henrichs, “Identities,” 138–48. Women were especially dominant before the late Hellenistic period (Kraemer, “Ecstatics,” 48–57).

In mythic texts, e.g., Soph. Antig. 955–65; Hom. Hymns 1.17 (to Dionysus); Diod. Sic. 3.64.2; 4.2.6; Plut. Table 1.1.3, Mor. 614A; Paus. 2.2.7; cf. Reniers, “Épopée” (despite the approach to matriarchal origins). In art, cf. McNally, “Maenad” (sometimes defending themselves, 107–8). At least in Euripides, however, the Bacchae are not truly liberated (Segal, “Menace,” 208–9).

For frenzy there (though often associated with men), see, e.g., Livy 38.18.9; Catull. Carm. 63.4; Ovid Fasti 4.236, 243, 245–46; Strabo 10.3.13; Val. Flacc. 7.635–36; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 108.7; Plut. Dial. L. 16, Mor. 758EF; Suet. Otho 8.3; Lucian Gout 30–32; Lucius 37; Alex. 13; Orph. H. 27.13; Burkert, Religion, 178. But some ancients claimed that the majority of the frenzied participants were women (Iambl. Myst. 3.10; cf. Lucian Affairs 42). Some associated this cult with that of Dionysus (Lucian Gout 38; also Bremmer, “Attis” [citing Catull. Carm. 63]). For some Roman resentment (cf., e.g., Pers. Sat. 5.185–89; Apul. Metam. 8.27–9.10; cf. the Hellenistic Pythagorean treatise in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 104–5, §107) but mostly gradual acceptance (see, e.g., Val. Max. 1.1.1; 7.5.2; Sil. It. 17.1–4), see Grant, Gods, 33; Klauck, Context, 124.

So, e.g., Eurip. Bacch. 59; Lucret. Nat. 2.611; Val. Max. 7.5.2; Pliny E. N.H. 5.41.147; Orph. H. 27.11–12; Apul. Metam. 11.4–5; Diog. Laert. 6.1.1; Lucian Dial. G. 233–34 (20/12, Aphrodite and Eros 1); Graf, “Asia Minor: Religion,” 150.

E.g., Rawson, “Family,” 16; Kee, Origins, 89. Cf., more generally, Livy 25.1.11–12; 39.15.11; 39.18.9.

Jos. Ant. 18.64–80; cf. Tac. Ann. 2.85; Suet. Tib. 36. For Roman concerns, gradually eased, see, e.g., Val. Max. 1.3.4; 7.3.8; Juv. Sat. 6.489, 511–29; Grant, Gods, 34–35; Heyob, Isis, 26–27, 36; Dunand, “Mystères,” 38. Even much later, Isis worshipers worked hard to emphasize their loyalty to Rome and its values (e.g., Apul. Metam. 11.17; cf. chastity, 11.19).

Carcopino, Life, 131, citing Juv. Sat. 6.540–41, 548–50. Wives must follow their husbands’ (Roman) religion (Plut. Bride 19, Mor. 140D).

Balch, Wives, 117–18 (cf. 65–80); Keener, Paul, 139–56 (more briefly, idem, “Man and Woman,” 587); for explicit indicators of such concerns in the Pastorals, see Padgett, “Rationale.” Some argue that Luke’s apologetic aims cause him to limit women’s roles (see D’Angelo, “Redactional View”; Matthews, Converts, 53–54); although I would not see Luke’s portrait as negative against the larger backdrop of Greek culture (and he does not reduce women’s testimony as perhaps 1 Cor 15:5–8 does), apologetic concerns might prevent Luke from fleshing out his ideal in Acts 2:17–18 as fully as he otherwise might have.

See Sussman, “Workers,” 89.

E.g., Hesiod W.D. 90–95; cf. Paus. 1.24.7.

Thus Zeus “made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil” (Hesiod Theog. 601–2 [LCL, 123]); cf. Hesiod W.D. 57, cited also in Ach. Tat. 1.8.2. In Lucian Dial. G. 204 (5/1, Prometheus and Zeus 1), Zeus is angry with Prometheus for creating women. Or Pandora was a composite design from various deities, with the resulting mess that one expects from committees (Dio Chrys. Or. 77/78.25).

Lucian Affairs 9, 43. Misogynists could also revile all women (Ach. Tat. 1.8.1). Lefkowitz, Women in Myth, 112–32, addresses misogyny, highlighting Aristotle (for his pervasive influence later, cf. Peradotto and Sullivan, “Introduction,” 3).

Lucian Dial. D. 445 (9/28, Menippus and Tiresias 1) (though Lucian himself is skeptical; see Dial. D. 445–47, but ¶¶2–3).

See Curran, “Rape,” 270 (also noting that the victims were usually the ones punished, 271–72). Women also appear inferior to men in Ovid (see Keith, “Lay of Land”); those who behave appropriately in Ovid belong to the domestic sphere (Bolton, “Spaces”). His portrayal of women’s subordination also matches artwork from the Augustan period (Ramsby and Severy-Hoven, “Gender”).

So Aristoph. Lys. 137–38.

Dio Chrys. Or. 74.18–19, developing Hom. Od. 11.441–43. In Od. 11.432–34, Clytemnestra’s behavior reflects badly on her gender (even though she murdered Cassandra, too; 11.422); Odysseus observes that many perished for Helen and now others by Clytemnestra (11.436–39), without pausing to observe the vast majority of bloodshed in Homer performed by men.

Dio Chrys. Or. 74.19.

Willner, “Oedipus Complex.”

Foley, “Conception.”

See, e.g., Kraemer, “Evidence”; Safrai, “Place of Women”; Cohen, “Women”; Kraabel, “Judaism in Asia Minor,” 46–48; Manns, “Femme.”

E.g., Jean-Baptiste Frey in CIJ 1:lxxxix: “On ne voit jamais une femme remplir la fonction d’archonte.”

Trebilco, Communities, 104–13; women also held prominent roles in pagan cults in Asia Minor, though this (unlike in synagogues) would not correlate with any higher roles in noncultic society (113–25). (Cf. Kraabel, “Judaism in Asia Minor,” 44; but his supposed link between women’s higher roles here and “female divinities in Anatolian religions” [p. 48] is improbable.) The Tannaim apparently did not approve of women as community administrators (Sipre Deut. 157.2.2).

Trebilco, Communities, 125. Horsley, Galilee, 237, believes that early Galilean women participated more freely than later rabbinic sources indicate, though less than in the urban Diaspora.

Brooten, Women Leaders, 5–33, noting that there is no evidence that these are purely honorific, “heads of synagogues” normally representing the synagogue communities to outsiders. At least some uses of the term, for some people, were honorific if we may infer from the title’s application to an infant (Chilton and Yamauchi, “Synagogues,” 1146), perhaps from a family that held the title. On the usual sense of the title, see comment on Acts 13:15.

Brooten, Women Leaders, 32–33.

Chilton and Yamauchi, “Synagogues,” 1146, count three out of thirty.

Brooten, Women Leaders, 35–39. Also women priests (73–99), though this title might simply specify “daughters of Aaron” (cf. Luke 1:5).

See Brooten, Women Leaders, 44; on the elder inscriptions more fully, 41–55. For another example, a fourth- or fifth-century elder inscription from Malta, see Kraemer, “Inscription from Malta.” One of the few synagogue inscriptions from Crete identifies a woman elder (Sanders, Crete, 43).

Cf., e.g., Sall. Catil. 25.2 (though Sempronia was also evil; on Sallust’s hostile view of Sempronia, see discussion in Milnor, “Women,” 279–81); Plut. Dinner 3, Mor. 148CE (placed as a contemporary of Anacharsis); Pliny Ep. 1.16.6 (though Pliny is unsure if she is the true author). Cf. even praise for a woman’s wisdom in Hom. Il. 13.432, though this refers to wisdom in women’s matters. Shelton, Romans, 299, suggests that, in general, a woman’s intelligence was praised for enjoying her husband’s opinions, rather than for expressing her own. I adapted this material on women’s education in antiquity also for an article, Keener, “Education” (meant to contrast opportunities available in antiquity with those available today).

Winter, Wives, 112–13, following Hemelrijk, Matrona docta, 92–96; cf. also Christes, “Education,” 822; Verner, Household, 39.

See, e.g., Vivante, “Authors,” 712; on Sappho, see, e.g., Grant, Social History, 12; Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 4–6; for the view that her poetry expresses lesbian sentiments, see Stigers, “World”; Winckler, “Gardens”; Hartmann, “Homosexuality,” 469 (cf. Philost. Vit. Apoll. 1.30). For women physicians, see the excursus on ancient physicians in above.

E.g., two in the early second century C.E. in Brennan, “Poets.” Cf. Roman women poets in Hallett, “Authors” (who on 716 also notes later Roman Christian women authors, such as Faltonia Betitia Proba and Egeria).

Quint. Inst. 1.1.6; cf. Dixon, Roman Mother, 3. Articulate nurses were also valued for the same reason (Quint. Inst. 1.1.4–5; cf. Tac. Dial. 29; b. Ketub. 50a). Fathers were responsible for education (e.g., 4 Macc 18:10; b. Qidd. 29a; 30a; Moore, Judaism, 2:127; Goodman, State, 72; Safrai, “Education,” 947, citing t. Qidd. 1:11; Sipre Deut. 46; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.178; Philo Embassy 210), but for mothers’ role in teaching children, see Plut. Educ. 20, Mor. 14B; Hdn. 5.8.10; 6.1.1; cf. Prov 1:8; 6:20; 15:20; 23:22; 31:26; 2 Tim 1:5; Barclay, Train a Child, 157; Verner, Household, 137; in a secondary way, b. Ber. 17a; Soṭah 21a; a grandmother in Tob 1:8. Women (and unmarried men) may not teach children in m. Qidd. 4:13, but this probably does not refer to their own.

Cf. Gamble, “Literacy,” 645.

Forbes, Prophecy, 277 (esp. n. 57).

Scholer, “Writing,” 1283.

Davies, Rhetoric, 252 (following Harris, Literacy). This is certainly true for metropolites in Egypt’s nome capitals (Lewis, Life, 62), though there were literate women, at their parents’ discretion (62–63). Even in the classical period, though women were less literate than men, there is evidence for some literate women (Cole, “Read”).

Stamps, “Children,” 198; cf. Watson, “Education,” 309 (allowing that some girls did receive education from twelve to fifteen). Jeffers, World, 255–56, suggests that upper-class girls’ education stopped at fourteen, in time for arranged marriages, while boys would go further. The discrepancies may reflect different times and places concerned.

Dio Chrys. Or. 32.3.

See, e.g., Plato Laws 6.780–81; 7.804–6; 8.838–39, as quoted in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 72–75, §88; Plutarch’s A Woman, Too, Should Be Educated.

E.g., Xen. On Hunting 13.18. Sometimes this meant the husband teaching her (e.g., Xen. Oec. 3.10, 14–16; 7.10; Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145BC; 1 Cor 14:35), which such writers sometimes present as among the more radical options of their day.

Diog. Laert. 1.90. His own daughter reportedly “composed riddles in hexameters” (1.89).

Arist. Pol. 2.4.6, 1266b.

Mus. Ruf. 4.

Yet Musonius appears to have accepted these roles as conventional, or based on general physical traits, rather than universal.

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 46.8–23 (and this only because nature fitted women best for this, but the roles could be interchangeable at times, lines 23–31).

Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 48.21–23.

Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145C. Plutarch (or a later writer in his name) seems to have advocated women’s education (A Woman, Too, Should be Educated frg. 128–33).

Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145DE. Cf. Publ. Syr. 376 (LCL, 63): “A woman when she thinks alone thinks ill” (cf. similarly Publ. Syr. 365). Blomqvist, “Chryseïs,” considers Dio more respectful toward intellectual women than Plutarch was.

Val. Max. 9.1.3; see further discussion above. Sen. Y. Dial. 6.7.3 apparently compares them to the uneducated. For “old wives’ tales,” see Cic. Nat. d. 1.20.55; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 94.2; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 5.14; Vit. soph. 1.25.541; Iambl. V.P. 32.227; Jos. Asen. 4:10/14; 1 Tim 4:7; see also Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 68; Winter, Wives, 30–31; esp. Rosivach, “Anus”; cf. Hrk. 7.10; 8.2.

Juv. Sat. 6.434–56.

Liefeld, “Preacher,” 239–41 (citing polemical texts, Iren. Her. 1.13.1, 3; 1.23.2, 4; Lucian Runaways 18); 2 Tim 3:6–7; cf. Jos. Ant. 18.65–84.

E.g., note “Magnilla the philosopher,” daughter and wife of philosophers, from second- or third-century Asia Minor (Pleket 30, translated in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, 160, §168). That a disproportionate number of women trained in philosophy were daughters of philosophers (Diog. Laert. 2.86; 8.1.42) reinforces the perception of the social difficulties confronted in achieving such a status.

Pythagorean writings also included significant instructions to women (Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 82, citing letters 34 and 35, i.e., Ps.-Melissa Letter to Kleareta [p. 83] and Ps.-Theano Letter to Eubule [83–85]), though some of the advice (e.g., about modesty) is conventional. It was said that Pythagoras educated boys and girls in different settings when locals so requested (Iambl. V.P. 9.50).

Iambl. V.P. 36.267. He lists the most prominent disciples in 35.251 and the chain of successors in 36.265–66.

The percentage could be lower if the women are drawn from a larger period, but since these are the most noteworthy women, the total number of women could be higher.

Diog. Laert. 8.1.43; cf. Lucian Affairs 30; Frede, “Theano”; for her reputed role as Pythagoras’s partial successor, see, e.g., Euseb. P.E. 10.14.14 (in Inwood, “Mnesarchus”). Some held her to be another’s wife but Pythagoras’s pupil (Diog. Laert. 8.1.42; our sources for Pythagoras are many centuries after Pythagoras died, but there is no reason to doubt that Theano studied philosophy). She was also known for her womanly modesty (Plut. Bride 31, Mor. 142CD).

Diog. Laert. 8.1.43.

Diog. Laert. 8.1.42.

Iambl. V.P. 31.194. A freedwoman kills herself to avoid breaking under torture in Tac. Ann. 15.57 (praising her noble spirit); a woman who divulges information under torture is exculpated (by an advocate) on account of her weak gender in Quint. Decl. 272.3–5.

Porph. Marc. 3.37 (also out of friendship to her deceased husband, 3.38–39).

Porph. Marc. 3.43–45. She should not therefore concern herself with being a woman physically, since that was not why he married her (33.511–13); she should flee what is feminine and pursue a virginal soul (33.513–16).

Diog. Laert. 4.1.

Diog. Laert. 2.86 (cf. 2.72).

See Taylor, “Virgin Mothers.”

Philo Posterity 136, esp. 151 (in Robbins, Jesus the Teacher, 96).

This may be true even of Musonius; no women are known among his disciples (Meeks, Moral World, 46). Our sources, however, are far from complete.

As often noted (e.g., Stowers, Letter Writing, 39; Smith, Symposium, 58). Some may have been fitted into traditional sexual roles, so that a courtesan is a mistress of the aged Epicurus and apparently perhaps one of his pupils in Alciph. Court. 17 (Leontium to Lamia), 2.2 (but this may reflect anti-Epicurean polemic).

Philod. Crit. col. 21b.13–22b.

Dorandi, “Epicurean School,” 1075.

Lucian Eunuch 7 (Harmon in LCL, 5:339n1, suggests that Diotima, from Plato’s Symposium, may be fictitious). For some other women, see Harper, “Women in philosophy.”

Diog. Laert. 6.7.96–98. See further Goulet-Cazé, “Hipparchia.”

Diog. Laert. 6.7.98; cf. Mary’s “superior” role in Luke 10:42.

See Crates Ep. 28–29. By contrast, other of the Cynic Epistles praise her (Diogenes Ep. 3).

Lucian Runaways 18, playing on Plato’s group marriage (Plato Rep. 5.457, 459E), mocked further elsewhere (Lucian True Story 2.19; Phil. Sale 17) and recalled in other sources (Sext. Emp. Pyr. 3.205). It was apparently earlier held by the early Stoic Zeno (Diog. Laert. 7.1.33, 131), and possibly practiced independently by others (as in Pliny E. N.H. 5.8.45); for modern cultural examples, see Mbiti, Religions, 166; Grunlan and Mayers, Cultural Anthropology, 161.

See, e.g., Sop. 18:5 in Blank, “Texts.”

See esp. Brooten, Women Leaders, 140–41.

Safrai, “Education,” 955.

See Brooten, Women Leaders, 140–41; Le Cornu, Acts, 991 (citing b. Soṭah 1:4, comparing Luke 10:39).

Jos. Ant. 4.209 (more generally, 209–11); on public reading of the law to all, including women, see also, e.g., 1 Esd 9:40.

Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.181.

Sipre Deut. 307.4.1. The daughter may be the same as Beruria (Moore, Judaism, 2:128–29) if that is not a later harmonistic tradition.

Though so do inanimate objects, as Le Cornu, Acts, 992, mentions. The woman servants in R. Gamaliel II’s household reportedly knew Torah well (b. Roš Haš. 26b; Meg. 18a; Naz. 3a), but they were very exceptional (Moore, Judaism, 2:128).

Ilan, Women, 190–204 (including in this summary even rabbinic information about Beruria, 197–200).

b. Menaḥ. 42b (Amoraic and Babylonian).

So b. Qidd. 34a (perhaps because they had not been properly educated for it).

E.g., m. Ḥag. 1:1; t. Ber. 6:18 (lest they perform the commandments wrongly and offend the Lord); b. Menaḥ. 61b; y. Ḥag. 1:1, §7; see further Ilan, Women, 176–84. A husband could not force a wife to break a Nazirite vow, though he could annul it (m. Naz. 9:1); women are not reckoned highly with regard to zimmun (b. Ber. 45b).

M. Ber. 3:3; Mek. Pisha 17, lines 160–61 (Lauterbach, 1:153); y. Ber. 2:2, §5; Pesiq. Rab. 22:5.

Thus, for Sukkoth, Lydda was emptied “of men” (ἀνδρῶν, Jos. War 2.515); later rabbis exempted women from the obligation to dwell in the sukkah (m. Sukkah 2:8; b. Sukkah 2b; y. Sukkah 2:9). (Rabbis also exempted shopkeepers on intermediate days of festivals to obtain goods; Goodman, State, 55.)

M. Ber. 3:3; t. Ber. 5:17; b. Roš Haš. 3:10; cf. Sukkah 3:10.

See m. Ned. 4:3 (Witherington, Women, 6).

So b. Soṭah 3:4; y. Ḥag. 1:1, §1.

So Wegner, Chattel, 161.

Given the comparison with sexual immorality in the passage, the rabbis might be thinking particularly of stories involving immorality (especially Tamar, Potiphar’s wife, and the Midianite women). But girls would hear such stories (and much of Torah) expounded eventually in the synagogue, in any case.

So b. Soṭah 3:4. Tradition said that the second rabbi, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, preferred that the Torah be burned rather than that it be taught to a woman (Num. Rab. 9:48; see further Moore, Judaism, 2:128n4); yet his wife appears well versed (b. Šabb. 116ab). Concern about women’s sexuality may have eventually led to “protecting” them from Torah study (see Wegner, Chattel, 161–62).

See Safrai, “Education,” 955.

Ibid., noting that the later OT, the Apocrypha, Philo, and Josephus also support this picture.

On late second-century Palestinian Jewish boys’ training (perhaps hyperbolic or addressing only well-to-do families), see m. ʾAbot 5:21 (cf. Jos. Life 9–12; Ant. 20.264–65).

B. Ber. 17a; Soṭah 21a.

E.g., Derrett, Audience, 33 (noting the exceptional picture of Jesus in the Gospels, including Luke 8:2; 10:42; Mark 15:41).

Goodman, State, 74 (and also 223n175 [to p. 74]).

Especially in classical Athens (e.g., Gould, “Position in Athens,” 47, 50; Dover, “Attitudes,” 145) but continuing in Hellenistic Egypt (see Verner, Household, 38); more generally, see Llewellyn-Jones, Tortoise, 189–90. Jewish sources also maintain the ideal (Ps.-Phoc. 215–16; Wegner, Chattel, 18, 150–53; Ilan, Women, 128–29), but in practice it was limited (e.g., Safrai, “Home,” 752; Fiensy, “Composition,” 225).

See, e.g., Hemelrijk, “Masculinity.” Even segregation in banquets was beginning to break down among aristocratic Romans (Smith, Symposium, 208–9, 298n27; Stambaugh, City, 207), though Greeks were stricter (Corn. Nep. pref. 6–7).

E.g., Dio Chrys. Or. 3.70; Plut. Bride 9, Mor. 139C; 30, Mor. 142C; 32, Mor. 140D; some in Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 42.13–14; Pliny Ep. 4.19.4. See also examples in Paige, “Matrix,” 226–31.

Soph. Ajax 293 (LCL, 1:59). Hera is silenced, though by the threat that Zeus will beat her (Hom. Il. 1.565–69). Wives should keep quiet even at home when the husband is in a rage (Plut. Bride 37, Mor. 143C). I have noted above the preference for women’s “meekness” and “modesty.”

See sources in Grant, Social History, 5.

Val. Max. 3.8.6 (though his wording may suggest that the “custom” was already being flouted at times). On Valerius’s bias, see Milnor, “Women,” 276–77. One may also contrast the male deity of speech with goddesses of silence (Dubourdieu, “Divinités de la parole”). If Tacitus did not go so far, he nevertheless resented the impropriety of women being with, and speaking to, soldiers (Ann. 2.55).

See esp. Simon, “Causes.” Winter, Wives, 115, mentions these without noting that Valerius himself views them as exceptional (though Winter knows that they are; see idem, Left Corinth, 135–36). Winter, Wives, 176–79, mentions more on women in the courts, again without pointing out that this was exceptional.

Normally they needed advocates (Hermog. Method 21.436–37). Under duress, women sometimes pleaded before judges (e.g., Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:9; Song Rab. 5:16, §2) and might request or win special consideration on account of their gender (P.Sakaon 36 in Horsley, Documents, 4:132–33, §30; P.Ryl. 114, line 5; Alciph. Court. 4 [Bacchis to Phrynê], 1.31, ¶4; cf. Luke 18:2–7; Lysias Or. 32.11–18, §§506–11; Bailey, Peasant Eyes, 134–35). Under such duress, women likewise pleaded with Marcius to spare Rome in Appian Hist. rom. 2.5.3; Plut. Coriol. 34.2. A woman summoned to court might weep in silence before answering (Tac. Ann. 16.31). As noted above, Mediterranean laws were prejudiced even against women as witnesses (e.g., Justin. Inst. 2.10.6; Jos. Ant. 4.219).

Plut. Bride 32, Mor. 142D.

Pliny Ep. 4.19.4.

Pliny Ep. 1.16.6. Pliny expresses uncertainty whether the man composed the letters in his wife’s name or instead developed her eloquence.

Heliod. Eth. 1.21.

So, e.g., Eurip. Hippolytus Veiled frg. 440 (from Stobaeus 4.22.180); Danae frg. 321 (Stob. 4.22.172); Babr. 16.10; Avianus Fables 15–16; Phaedrus 4.15; Fronto Ep. graec. 2.3 (written to a woman!); cf. Eurip. Stheneboea frg. 671 (men should not trust women); see discussion above.

Hornblower, “Aspasia,” citing the Suda.

So Fronto Fer. als. 3.5 if this is not a rhetorical flourish. Hornblower, “Aspasia,” mentions only discussions with Socrates (in Plut. Per. 24). Pervo, “Entführung,” compares the Life of Aspasia, which he views as largely fictitious, with the Life of Aesop (Aesop Romance).

Eunapius Lives 466.

Eunapius Lives 469.

So Eunapius Lives 467–68. She fits the so-called “divine man” profile more widespread in her period.

Harper, “Women in philosophy,” 1626. Christians lynched her in 415 (Mastrocinque, “Choices,” 391), but Hart, Delusions, 45–47, argues that her politics rather than her gender or religion led to her martyrdom.

So Winter, Wives, 115–16, citing the absence of women in such posts in Philostratus’s Lives of Sophists and in Hemelrijk’s work. Aspasia and Sosipatra may be viewed as exceptions, but neither is within even a century of the early empire. We should also exclude lower-level teachers, such as instructors in rudimentary Greek in Egypt’s towns, a minority of whom were women or slaves (Lewis, Life, 63).

B. Šabb. 116ab. Rabbi Gamaliel’s household seems to have hosted educated women even among the servants (Moore, Judaism, 2:128).

Exod. Rab. 52:3 (the characters are from the late second century).

Swidler, Women, 97–104, calls Beruria “the exception that proves the rule,” noting that (104–11) other “exceptions” were not clearly learned in the Torah. Talmudic accounts of Beruria suggest the dissonance that her role created against conventions (Adler, “Virgin”).

Safrai, “Education,” 955 (citing as examples of her learning, t. B. Qam. 4:17; t. b. Meṣiʿa 1:6; b. Pesaḥ. 62b; elsewhere, see, e.g., b. ʿErub. 53b–54a); Moore, Judaism, 2:128–29 (and sources there).

Safrai, “Education,” 955.

Both sons and daughters raised in rabbinic families stood at an advantage in knowing Torah (see Goodman, State, 78, citing t. B. Bat. 2:3; for daughters, t. B. Qam. 4:17; cf. also Witherington, Women, 195n232). The situation is analogous to daughters of philosophers, noted above. But for the ambiguous situation of rabbis’ daughters, see Weisberg, “Desirable but Dangerous.”

Ilan, “Quest for Beruriah”; Ilan, Women, 200.

See, e.g., Moore, Judaism, 2:129 (citing b. Pesaḥ. 62b).

Safrai, “Education,” 955.

E.g., Sir 9:9; b. Ber. 43b, bar.; Ned. 20a; y. Ḥal. 2:1, §10; cf. Swidler, Women, 123–25. Some (attributed ultimately to a second-century Tanna) went so far as to claim that God himself avoided speaking with women (b. Soṭah 7:1, §2; Gen. Rab. 20:6; 48:20; 63:7; cf. also Urbach, Sages, 1:155). At least some women upheld this gender boundary (b. ʿErub. 53b). Certainly, no wife could be alone with a man besides her husband (b. Soṭah 1:1, §7).

E.g., God punished Antipas for heeding a woman’s (in this case, his wife’s) talk (Jos. Ant. 18.252–55).

m. ʾAbot 1:5 (with a pre-Christian attribution); ʾAbot R. Nat. 14, §35 B. The issue in this case may be simply public onlookers unaware of the relationship (b. Ber. 43b), since some rabbis certainly did approve of listening to their wives. But against confiding some things to one’s wife, cf. ʾAbot R. Nat. 7 A.

M. Qidd. 4:13. Undoubtedly, this means children in a school, not their own children; unmarried men are also excluded. The Gemara may imply that this was from concern about immorality between the teacher and fathers who brought children to school (Swidler, Women, 114, on b. Qidd. 82a), though the accuracy of this interpretation is not entirely clear.

Le Cornu, Acts, 688, citing b. Meg. 23a; cf. Witherington, Women, 7. Moore, Judaism, 2:131, noted that she could be one of the seven readers but it was disapproved of and that no examples remain extant. Wegner, Chattel, 146, argues that the Mishnah’s framers excluded women’s public religious activity even more than in most other ancient religious groups.

Safrai and Safrai, “Hkl.” Horsley, Galilee, 237, believes that early Galilean women participated more freely than later rabbinic sources indicate, though less than in the urban Diaspora.

So t. Meg. 3[4]:11. Brooten, Women Leaders, 95, notes this and also that m. Sukkah 3:10 reluctantly permits women to read “the Hallel in private.”

So t. Ber. 2:12.

So R. Joshua ben Levi in b. Meg. 4a.

Brooten, Women Leaders, 95, noting the possibility.

Note again ibid.: “Further, although there is no solid evidence for women having read the Torah publicly in the synagogue service, it cannot be excluded, particularly for the Greek-speaking congregations (about which we know next to nothing), that they did.”

T. Ketub. 4:7 (esp. with 4:6).

Cf. Sigountos and Shank, “Public Roles”; sacral speech in Paige, “Matrix,” 231–33. Unlike Germans, Romans did not believe women especially prophetically endowed (Tac. Germ. 8).

Cf., e.g., the Delphic Pythoness, on which see comment on Acts 16:16.

As Ferguson, Backgrounds, 57–58, points out, although many have overstated the reality of wifely seclusion, the domestic sphere remained especially that of the wife. Public activity (in the sense of politics, war, and oratory, not the market) remained especially that of the husband. See also discussion in broader cultural terms in Malina and Neyrey, Portraits, 177–81; on their exclusion from political life, see, e.g., Rives, Religion, 106.

In both cases, they contextually supplement male prophets (Simeon and Agabus). That is, Luke could have settled for the explicit males’ prophecies to make his point (although, in Simeon and Anna’s case, it fits his interest in double confirmations) had the point not included a valuing of gender balance.

Cf. Lucian Runaways 18; esp. Liefeld, “Preacher,” 239–40; Klauck, Context, 488. The attraction of even aristocratic women to Pharisaism (cf. Jos. Ant. 17.41; War 1.110) invited criticism (see further Ilan, “Women to Pharisaism”).

It is also possible that he omits some prominent models because of the apologetic concerns that also dominate his work, as suggested above.

Had he expanded the title more broadly to its Pauline usage, he still lacked opportunity to discuss Junia (if he knew of her; Rom 16:7), since he names no one in Rome and his treatment of Paul’s early years is sparse. Some do affirm a historical Thecla (e.g., Albrecht, “Thecla”), though most are more skeptical.

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