LATE ANTIQUE CULTURE AND PRIVATE LIFEEphesus and Chalcedon (Chapters 1 and 3), though attention to Mary had
been building up since the late fourth century, but the emergence of her cult
also carried powerful symbolic messages for women: whereas Eve represented
woman’s sinfulness and potential to corrupt, Mary stood for her purity, dem-
onstrated by virginity and total obedience.^65 This development in the cult of
the Virgin, especially around the time of the Council of Ephesus (431),^66 was
preceded by an increasingly strident advocacy of virginity by many of the late
fourth-century Fathers; this, too, while not confi ned to women, tended to
be presented in terms of the woman’s traditional image as seductress. Since,
as in most societies before and since, men still represented rationality, while
women were defi ned in terms of their sexual identity, it is hardly surprising if
the price of a degree of freedom for women was the denial of their sexuality.
The highly popular fi ctional accounts of female saints such as Mary of Egypt,
often former prostitutes, who concealed their sex altogether and dressed as
men, usually to be revealed as female only on their deathbeds, demonstrate
in extreme form the complexities and contradictions of Christian gender atti-
tudes.^67
Close study of the large amount of legislation on marriage and other mat-
ters affecting women from Constantine to Justin II (565–78) reveals both
continuities and changes. Women are still seen as essentially dependent and
in need of protection, their status is strictly subordinate to that of their hus-
bands and their legal access is limited. The great bulk of Roman law affect-
ing individuals was little changed by Christianization, and indeed much of it
was re-enacted by the Christian emperors. But new legislation also concerned
itself with the protection of public morality, and especially with the protection
of chastity; it became much more diffi cult for a woman to initiate divorce,
and obstacles were put in the way of remarriage; from Constantine onwards a
succession of laws penalized women far more strictly than men for initiating
unjustifi ed divorce proceedings, until in 548 Justinian equalized the penal-
ties. Even under the Christian emperors, however, marriage itself remained a
civil and not a religious affair. On the other hand, the rights and obligations
of mothers over their children were considerably strengthened, especially by
Justinian, to whom the largest body of relevant legislation belongs, and all
of whose innovations were actually in the direction of improving the legal
position of women.^68 The real role of Christianization in bringing about such
change is, however, far from clear; the law was changing during this period,
certainly, but the motivation for those changes is another matter. Perhaps the
most striking feature remains simply the amount of attention given in imperial
legislation to matters concerning women; this is important enough in itself.
Thus the ways in which women could enter the public sphere, though they
existed for a few, were still limited. The pagan intellectuals Hypatia and Athenaïs,
the latter the daughter of an Athenian philosopher who became empress
(as Eudocia) after she had been taken up by the Emperor Theodosius’ pious
sister Pulcheria (Chapter 1), were equally or even more exceptional. On the
other hand, within the religious sphere, on a family basis or in the religious life,