This article will discuss women’s roles and behaviours in ancient Rome, particularly, the differing points of view regarding a person’s right to determine whether their child will be raised or not. The basis of the contradiction this paper will explore is one source, Oxyrhynchus Papyri 744, showing a social acceptance of post-conception means of family planning, while another, Ovid’s Love Affairs, says that post-conception family planning is morally wrong. In greater depth, the contradictory opinion held in ancient Rome is that one person had the right to decide whether a newborn infant would be raised by the family or exposed, while another did not have the right to decide whether they would continue with a pregnancy or have said pregnancy aborted. This hypocritical view can be attributed to the structure of power relations between men and women in ancient Roman society. Continue reading
Author: Melissa Harrison
So you’ve Been Invited to a Wedding
Planning a wedding is a trying time for every couple. I, for one, looked at my husband-elect during the planning process and wondered if I could really spend the rest of my life with a man who couldn’t tell the difference between a very slate-like blue and a cool blue-toned gray. As you can surmise, responding to a wedding invitation incorrectly, giving a gift inadequately or dressing inappropriately, and thereby making this stressful time more difficult than it has to be, is a sure-fire way to have your friend/cousin/sister screaming at you and her mother/your aunt/your own mother bad mouthing you to anyone who compliments or congratulates her on anything concerning the wedding.
“The centrepieces are lovely.” “Yes, it really is too bad Mary didn’t tell the cashier that she was purchasing something from the registry.”
“And I Wish I Was at Home in Dear Old Dublin”
I’m doing the dishes, passively gazing out the window at the dusty driveway and the heavy clouds ready to rupture with the April rain, and quietly singing a song I don’t quite know, “Paddy’s Lamentation”. But this story doesn’t start here. It starts a few weeks ago, when I reached my 24th birthday. While I was musing over martinis with the couple of friends I cornered at my birthday party as I entered the stage of inebriation that my husband comically refers to as ‘Professor Hanna’, I discovered that I had reached a milestone. As I elucidated at the party – less eloquently then, than I am remembering now, I’m sure – “now that I am 24, if I get pregnant, everyone will assume it was intentional.” The combination of this revelation, this comic and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women got me thinking about the perceptions of life, love and pregnancy in my own small hometown. Continue reading
Cleopatra: the Icon of Beauty
In the iconic 1963 photograph of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra on the set of Cleopatra, the image of the Egyptian Queen reflects the modern interpretation of her legendary beauty while also preserving her authentic ancient iconography.
