Wilkinson Kate. Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity

Cambridge University Press, 2015. — 184 p.Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity is a new look at some of the most studied documents relating to Christian female asceticism in the Roman era. Focusing on the letters of advice to the women of the noble Anicii family, Kate Wilkinson argues that conventional descriptions of feminine modesty can reveal spaces of agency and self-formation in early Christian women’s lives. She uses comparative data from contemporary ethnographies of Muslim, Hindu, and indigenous Pakistani women to draw out the possibilities inherent in codes of modesty. Wilkinson’s analysis also draws on performance studies for close readings of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Pelagius. Th e book begins by locating itself within the complex terrain of feminist historiography, and then addresses three main modes of modest behavior – dress, domesticity, and silence. Finally, Wilkinson addresses the theme of false modesty and explores women’s agency in light of Augustinian and Pelagian conceptions of choice