Seller
Signs of Virginity
Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity
Synopsis
Although the theme of bloodied nuptial sheets seems pervasive in western culture, its association with female virginity is uniquely tied to a brief passage in the book of Deuteronomy detailing the procedure for verifying a young woman's purity and seldom, if ever, appears outside of non-Abrahamic traditions. In Signs of Virginity, Michael Rosenberg examines the history of virginity testing in Judaism and early Christianity, and the relationship of these
tests to a culture that encourages male sexual violence.
Deuteronomy's violent vision of virginity has held sway in Jewish and Christian circles more or less ever since, but Rosenberg points to two authors-the rabbinic collective that produced the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine of Hippo-who, even as they perpetuate patriarchal assumptions about female virginity, nonetheless attempt to subvert the emphasis on sexual dominance bequeathed to them by Deuteronomy. Unlike the authors of earlier Rabbinic and Christian texts, who modified but
fundamentally maintained and even extended the Deuteronomic ideal, the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine both construct alternative models of female virginity that, if taken seriously, would utterly reverse cultural ideals of masculinity. Indeed this vision of masculinity as fundamentally gentle, rather than
characterized by brutal and violent sexual behavior, fits into a broader idealization of masculinity propagated by both authors, who reject what Augustine called a "lust for dominance" as a masculine ideal.
New & Used
Seller |
Information |
Condition |
Price |
|
| - | New | | Out of Stock |
What Reviewers Are Saying
This book will prove a valuable resource and conversation partner for students and scholars of classical and antique expressions of Judaism, Christianity, gender, and sexuality. * Michael R. Whitenton, Baylor University, Review of Biblical Literature * Signs of Virginity is a beautifully in depth and complex work that in the hands of another writer could have been impossible to follow. Michael Rosenberg does an excellent job of leading readers through a variety of texts with ease, without ever oversimplifying the complexity of each. The sheer diversity of texts he brings to the table is admirable... Rosenberg's study will soon be indispensable for those interested in late antique masculinity... Along with
earning a spot in the ranks of masculinity studies, Signs of Virginity also belongs to a burgeoning field of scholarship that treats rabbinic Judaism and Christianity together. Rosenberg's comparison of the Babylonian Talmud with Christian sources places him in a similar vein as scholars like Michal
Bar-Asher Siegal, Seth Schwartz, and Jeffrey Rubenstein. * Jeannie Sellick, Reading Religion *