The Once and Future Sex Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society

Eleanor Janega

eBook - 2023

A "provocative, colloquial and entertaining" (Carolyne Larrington, Times Literary Supplement) exploration of medieval thinking about women's beauty, sexuality, and behavior. "A timely corrective...Ms. Janega's witty but merciless dissection of medieval misogyny is a welcome challenge to us to stop recycling the same old prejudices."—Elizabeth Lowry, Wall Street Journal What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be? In this vibrant, high-spirited history, medievalist Eleanor Janega turns to the Middle Ages, the era that bridged the ancient world and modern society, to unfurl its suppositions about women and reveal what's shifted over time—and what hasn't. Enshrined medieval thi...nkers, almost always male, subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness, they chose the mythical Helen of Troy, whose... more