Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity by Kate Wilkinson

Abstract

In Chapter One, Wilkinson situates Mahmood’s work as part of the theoretical underpinning of her study and positions herself in contrast to feminist historians of early Christianity who have too often tracked women’s agency by attending solely to those women who resisted patriarchal norms. The argument of the book proceeds from addressing women’s modest dress (Chapter Two), domesticity (Chapter Three), and quietness (Chapter Four) to considering the possibility of insincere performances of modesty that preoccupied the church fathers (Chapter Five) and the question of agency and free will as it is raised in contemporary feminist theory and fourth- and fifth-century theological debates (Chapter Six). Noting that much feminist historical scholarship on women celebrates a woman’s voice as proxy for her power, she invites her readers to consider the restrained speech and demure silence of the early Christian ascetic women as presented in Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius, and Ambrose’s letters.