Inferior Social Status Research Articles

Σύντροφος: un Terme Technique Macédonien

Σύντροφος is a term familiar to epigraphists who study Greek inscriptions of the Roman period, especially from Asia Minor, and also to epigraphists and historians of the Hellenistic period. In the former case the term applies to actual foster brothers, to wit children who have been reared together, but also to persons engaged in other forms of professional or affective relationships. Students of the Hellenistic period, on the other hand, are in disagreement. Some interpret this term as an honorific title denoting a fictitious kinship with the king, while others maintain that it qualifies persons of the same age as the king who have actually been brought up with him. The institution of syntrophoi is attested in almost all Hellenistic courts with the exception of the Ptolemies. In Macedonia the relevant evidence extends from the reign of Philip II to that of Philip V. The parallelism between courtly and civic educa- tional institutions (βασιλικοὶ παῖδες and παῖδες in the civic gymnasia, βασιλικοὶ κυνηγοὶ and civic ἔφηβοι, βασιλικοὶ νεανίσκοι and νέοι in the civic gymnasia) ought to have prepared us to expect a civic equivalent to royal σύντροφοι. Such an equivalent is now attested in Philip V’s diagramma regulating military ser- vice. It appears thus that the Macedonian “civic” syntropohoi, like the Spartan mothakes, were boys of inferior social or financial status who were raised in the family of well-to-do boys of the same age, were thus enabled to receive the same education as they in the gymnasia, and could in case of need replace their foster brothers in their miltary obligations.

LivingSin Papeles

In the United States, the construction of “illegality” of undocumented Latino workers is predicated upon multiple interacting social, economic, political, and sociological factors and consignment to an inferior social status, harsh living conditions, and exploitation. These “cumulative vulnerabilities” contribute to increased stressors and poor psychological health outcomes. However, little is known about these marginalized workers’ experience of negotiating life in “illegality.” This qualitative study adopts a social constructivist perspective to examine the strategies these undocumented workers use to manage “illegality” and psychosocial stress. We conducted four focus groups with 27 participants and in-depth interviews with eight of these participants. Thematic analysis combined with constant comparison yielded the overarching theme of living sin papeles (without legal papers). Findings reveal that, phenomenologically, sin papeles extends far beyond legal status, being a condition of ever-present instability, insecurity, and hypervigilance that affects the social, work, health, and living conditions of undocumented Latino immigrants.

Grievance and Shame in the Modern Age of Entitlement

Philosophers since Plato have questioned whether might makes right, and whether the weak are condemned perforce to suffer at the hands of strong, cunning, and ruthless elites and majorities. This essay argues that communicative and strategic uses of grievance, shame, “bullshit,” collective action, and economic rent seeking (“entitlement seeking”) mitigate conventional forms of social might, thereby helping the weak and the few (that is, modern social minorities) to prosper and flourish despite their inferior strength, numbers, and social status. The argument is supported empirically by macroeconomic and ngram (“word frequency”) data.

The geometry of suicide law

Suicide is largely decriminalized in the contemporary world. But self-killers in the past were sometimes considered criminals and subject to posthumous trials, convictions, and penalties. In societies where suicide was defined as a crime by the state, some self-killers had their corpses defiled and mutilated and their assets confiscated. Others, though, received no state sanctions. In this paper, I apply Donald Black's theory of law and social control to explain variation in suicide law: When is suicide defined and treated as a crime? When is suicide law most severe? I focus on the three variable features of the social geometry of a suicide case -- the centralization of the state where the self-killing occurs, the self-killer's relationship to the state, and the self-killer's social status. My central findings are consistent with what Black's theory would predict. Suicide law is most likely and most severe when 1) a self-killing occurs in a highly centralized state, 2) a self-killer is directly subject to strong state authority, and 3) a self-killer has an inferior social status. To support my findings, I draw mostly from recent historical scholarship on suicide and its aftermath.

The Conflict among Hadrami Arab Community in Malaysia Regarding the Issues of Kafā’a in Muslim Marriage

This paper examines the conflict within the Hadrami Arab community in Malaya regarding the law ofkafā’a(compatibility, equality) in Muslim marriage. The historical background and social stratification of the Hadrami Arabs who divided themselves intosayyidsand non-sayyidswill be discussed. Thesayyidsclaim superiority over non-sayyidsbecause of their purported descent from the Prophet Muhammad, but the non-sayyidsrefused to recognize them on the basis of the contradiction (based on the principle of equality in Islam). The doctrine ofkafā’aupheld by thesayyidsprohibited their daughters from marrying people from a non-sayyidfamily due to the latter’s inferior social status. This paper discusses several issues involving the opinions of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence onkafā’a, the principle of equality in Islam as well as court decisions on forced marriage due to non compatibility factor.

The Poetics of the “Charmed Cup” in Felicia Hemans and Letitia Elizabeth Landon

THE MOTIF OF THE DRINKING CUP, RICH IN HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS, has variously evoked Dionysian inspiration, rituals of libation, Christ's sacrifice, and, by extension, either pleasure or healing. Male Romantics as diverse as Sheridan, Burns, Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Moore, de Quincey, and Keats all utilize the motif. (1) Often, they use it to allude to Bacchic release and artistic creativity: the essence of wit and storytelling is held in the cup, and it inspires creativity and a sexually charged break from mundane life. As these writers imbue the liquid within the with conflicting connotations of life, pleasure, cure, and poison, the becomes for them a complex, metapoetic device for authorship. Women writers of the era, negotiating the conventional ideology of male-identified authorship, adopted and refashioned the motif of the drinking cup. (2) Two such writers, Felicia Hemans (1793-1835) and Letitia Elizabeth Landon (known as L. E. L., 1802-1838), deployed the trope of the cup to explore female authorship and authorial power: the gift of genius, a seductive trap leading to commodification, and authorial control over self and others in seemingly uncontrollable situations. The emerges for them as a metapoetic device through which they analyze the intersections of gender, authorship, and life. While politically less committed to advocating the equality of the sexes than feminist writers such as Wollstonecraft a generation earlier, Elemans and Landon nonetheless expand the sites of women's writing beyond the sober reasoning Wollstonecraft advocates, as they explore ramifications of the authorial position, investing in the intoxication of authorial power. Challenging the typical understanding of Hemans and Landon as unreflective poetesses, this article aims to probe their artistic strategies and their reflections upon those strategies through the trope of the cup. Their use of the same motifs and similar rhetoric suggests significant literary cross-influences and correlations, stemming from their shared position as middle-class women writers navigating social, linguistic, and ideological conditions. They invert and revise the male-oriented rhetoric of the not only to signify their struggles for authorship but also to explore the transformative potential of those struggles. In particular, when they present sorceress figures who administer charmed cups, they enact and comment on the creative and destructive power of female authorship. These rhetorical moves offer metapoetic reflections on their artistic capacity, as well as demonstrate their literary range and professional ambition. 1. The Spell of the Charmed Cup In the Introduction to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791), Mary Wollstonecraft attributes women's complicity in men's objectification of them to women's temporary intoxication: ... men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, by the adoration which men, under the influence of their sense, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society. (3) A rationalist feminist thinker, Wollstonecraft argues that women inherently have access to the power of reason, a province conventionally assumed to be male. To change their inferior social status and the culture of objectification, she states, women must first awaken from their superficial and transient intoxication. In The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (posthumously published in 1798), Wollstonecraft presents as the most crucial moment for the protagonist, Maria, the time when she is roused from an intoxicated sensibility to more matured reason via writing. (4) Wollstonecraft constructs writing as a sober and rational act, which facilitates women's awakening from their drunken stupor and allows them to assume a position of equal partnership with men. …

Challenges in Improvement of Perinatal Health in Developing Nations: Role of Perinatal Pathology

Maternal fetal and infant mortality and morbidity are among the most significant public health problems in developing and resource-poor nations. In most developing countries important contributing factors to perinatal and maternal mortality are the lack of adequate diagnostic and pathology facilities inadequate or absent postmortem examination poor diagnostic pathology and microbiology capabilities and deficiency in surveillance systems statistical reporting and diagnostic accuracy of adverse maternal and perinatal health events. Most resource-poor nations have no pathologist trained in perinatal pathology who is available to address the clinical diagnostic public health and research aspects of these mortality and morbidity issues which are so prevalent in the developing world. The following article highlights some of the most important global perinatal health problems - including malaria low birth weight HIV/AIDS maternal malnutrition maternal death unsafe abortion and political turmoil - which would benefit by increased contributions from collaborations with physicians trained in perinatal pathology.

Illness and Healing from a Korean Woman’s Intercultural Perspective

In Korean culture, illness is frequently considered punishment for sin. In spite of the prevalence of Western medicine and advanced technologies, moral judgment is frequently confused with physical causality. There are certain religious dietary customs which people undertake in order to be healed. These customs are open to misinterpretation, and can become a basis for accusation, fear and guilt. Women and people of inferior social status are easily accused of being the cause of illness within families and society. The persecution of witchcraft in the medieval age developed from a similar mechanism: it is easier to scapegoat an individual or a small group than to take responsibility as an entire community. A religion that creates guilt and fear is not oriented towards health. Rather than being a blessing, it is, in fact, a problem. I consider whether religion is death or life oriented. Life giving energy for the sake of individual, as well as community, is an important component.

“However Satisfied Man Might Be”: Sexual Abuse in Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints Communities

Since the midnineteenth century, Mormon polygamy has been intimately tied to women's struggles to control their own domestic, social, and political lives. Suffrage, marriage, and the protection of women and children from sexual exploitation have been key issues in debates about plural marriage. Jean Bickmore White notes, for instance, that Women's Suffrage . . . won twice in Utah. It granted first in 1 870 by the territorial legislature but revoked by in 1887 as part of a national effort to rid the of polygamy. It restored in 1895, when the right to vote and hold office written into the constitution of the new state (White). White notes as well that Brigham Young believed that granting women the right to vote change the predominant national image of Utah women as downtrodden and oppressed and could help to stem a tide of antipolygamy legislation by Congress (White). As Mari Grana points out, enfranchising women was largely the instrument of men, who brought it about for opposing reasons. Antipolygamists and government officials believed that the franchise would give Mormon women the opportunity to vote themselves out of polygamy; the patriarchal Church members reasoned correctly that the women would defend polygamy for religious reasons, and the women's vote would strengthen LDS hegemony throughout the territory (77). Perhaps ignorant of the fact that obethence to the church is among the most powerful tenets of the Mormon religion, some antipolygamy suffragists saw Utah women's suffrage as a means of eradicating polygamy. Hence, many official actors viewed Utah women's suffrage- and more generally, Utah women's right to control the material conditions of their own lives- as extraneous to the women themselves. Suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Gage were less concerned about polygamy itself than about patriarchal institutions like religion and marriage. They argued that polygamy only one manifestation of systemic patriarchy whose core function to relegate women to inferior social status. After meeting with a group of Mormon women, Stanton made this comment: We all agreed that we were still far from having reached the ideal position for women in marriage, however satisfied man might be with his various experiments . . . and the Mormon women, like all others, . . . are no more satisfied than any other sect (Iversen 9). In Women, Church, and State, Gage asserted that doctrines accepted as truth by devout Mormon women are not more degrading to them, not more injurious to civilization, than is the belief of orthodox christian women in regard to the frailty and primal sin of her sex and the curse of her Creator upon her in consequence (419). Elsewhere, Gage's argument- that marriage's patriarchal and religious origins are at the core of women's oppression-is even more strongly stated: Where marriage is wholly or partially under ecclesiastical law, woman's degradation surely follows; but in Catholic and Protestant countries a more decent veil has been thrown over this sacrifice of woman than under some forms of the Greek Church, where the wife is delivered to the husband under this formula : Here, wolf, take thy lamb! and the bridegroom is presented with a whip, giving his bride a few blows as part of the ceremony, and bidding her draw off his boots as a symbol of her subjugation to him. With such an entrance ceremony, it may well be surmised that the marriage relation permits of the most revolting tyranny. (773) Mostly, though, this global critique of marriage fell on deaf ears; critiques of the specific practice of polygamy were much more common. Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance, wrote a call to action, which appeared in every issue of the Anti-Polygamy Standard, a periodical published by the Anti-Polygamy Society from 1880 to 1883: Let every happy wife and worker who reads these lines give her sympathy, prayers and efforts to free her sisters from this degrading bondage [of polygamy]. …

British Diplomacy in Switzerland (1689-1789) and Eighteenth Century Diplomatic culture

This essay explores the men who represented England (Britain following the Union of England and Scotland in 1707) between 1689 and 1789. It looks at what they were expected to do, at their origins, and at their careers. Reflecting the relative lack of importance of Switzerland in British diplomacy in the eighteenth century, resident British missions there were infrequent. In addition, most British diplomats sent to Switzerland were of relatively inferior social status, and most were appointed at a very junior diplomatic rank. In conclusion, British diplomacy and diplomats in Switzerland do not easily fit into the “ diplomatic culture ” which some historians have identified as developing in the eighteenth century and which clearly applies to the more important Courts to which Britain sent representatives after 1689.

Social health status of the HIV infected and their families and relevant influencing factors

To investigate the social health status of the HIV infected and their families in a high HIV/AIDS prevalence village in Hunan province and to examine the relations of the social health status, responses and social support. A total of 51 HIV infected persons (infected group), 49 family members of the infected (family member group) and 96 normal persons (control group) were surveyed by Social Health Measurement Scale-a sub-scale of Self-rated Health Measurement Scale (SRHMS), Social Support Assessment Scale (SSAS) and Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ). (1) In regard to the total scores of social health, responding style and social support, significant differences were found among the infected group, the group of family members and the control group (62.9 +/- 18.6, 79.8 +/- 18.0, 86.5 +/- 21.3, F = 18.16; 28.7 +/- 4.3, 27.2 +/- 5.4, 25.9 +/- 6.4, F = 5.21; 33.8 +/- 8.1, 41.0 +/- 6.6, 38.1 +/- 6.8, F = 13.23; P < 0.01). (2) Subjective care and support, the educational status, the marital status and support utilization were significant predictors to the social health status of the infected group (R(2) = 0.73, F = 27.78, P < 0.01). (3) Subjective support and negative responding style were significant predictors to the social health status of the group of family members (R(2) = 0.32, F = 12.35, P < 0.01). The HIV infected and their families have more negative responding style, make less use of social support and hold a inferior social health status. It's necessary to exert psychological intervention targeting at these population group.

Gendered Economic, Social, and Cultural Challenges to HIV/AIDS Prevention and Intervention for Chinese Women

ABSTRACT China is experiencing the most rapidly expanding HIV prevalence in the world, with the percentage of Chinese women living with HIV/AIDS also increasing significantly. Chinese women's risk of HIV infection is heavily influenced by patriarchal cultural beliefs, Confucian doctrines, and rapid social and economic changes in China. Chinese women generally have a low level of awareness of HIV/AIDS. With inherent inferior social status and economic disadvantage, their vulnerability to HIV infection is heightened by adverse impacts of massive rural-to-urban migration, explosion of the commercial sex industry, and prevalence of gender-based violence. In order to target HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs for Chinese women, their specific needs and gendered obstacles must be addressed and tackled. These include strategies that aim to fight against poverty, improve education, enhance HIV/AIDS awareness, facilitate new life-skills acquisition and behavior change, make available woman-centered services for testing and treatment of HIV, and eradicate gender-based discrimination and violence. There is also an urgent need to further develop various public health infrastructure in China, especially in remote and rural areas. The pool of gender experts in China should also be expanded to conduct a thorough gender analysis and design a national response to address the evolving HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chinese women.

Stigma: The Stealth Weapon of the NTD

Stigma: The Stealth Weapon of the NTD

JEFFREY M. SHUMWAY. The Case of the Ugly Suitor and Other Histories of Love, Gender, and Nation in Buenos Aires, 1776-1870. (Engendering Latin America.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2005. Pp. x, 200. $29.95

In 1776, as colonies on the North American seacoast declared independence from their British rulers, the reverse was taking place at the other end of the Atlantic basin: the Spanish crown established a new viceroyalty with Buenos Aires as its capital. That same year, the Spanish monarch issued a new law on marriage that was extended to the American colonies two years later. The legislation granted parents the right to prevent the matrimony of their progeny to partners of inferior social status. It also entitled the offspring to challenge parental opposition in civil court. Jeffrey M. Shumway's book draws its title from one of these cases, in which a father objected to his daughter's suitor on the basis of—among other complaints—his physical appearance. These court cases and others related to child custody provide the author with more than a catchy title. They offer him a rich, and suitable, source to examine prevailing attitudes regarding family, marriage, women, and status during a period that runs from the inception of the law, through its survival after Argentine independence, to its abrogation with the creation of a national civil code in 1870. Criminal cases deal with aberrations, with behavior that—in spite of its apparent ordinariness—is actually statistically rare (the reason criminologists find it so difficult to explain crime trends even today when data abound by comparison to the nineteenth century). Marriage, however, is—as an event—only less common than birth and death, and as experience arguably more common than any other social relation. It is true that not all Argentine parents objected to their children's choice of spouse, and fewer children challenged their parents' objection in court; Shumway does not tell us how common the practice was or the socioeconomic distribution of the individuals involved. But the cases he examines deal with prevalent ideals and quotidian realities and concerns, include people of diverse social backgrounds, and, because of the nature of litigation, necessarily highlight divergent opinions.

'So Strange a Monster as a Jesuite': The Society of Jesus in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (review)

Reviewed by: 'So Strange a Monster as a Jesuite': The Society of Jesus in Sixteenth-Century Scotland Jane E.A. Dawson 'So Strange a Monster as a Jesuite': The Society of Jesus in Sixteenth-Century Scotland. By Michael J. Yellowlees. Pp xi, 228. ISBN 1 899863 88 5. Isle of Colonsay: House of Lochar. 2003£18.99. This is the story of the Jesuit mission in Scotland and of Scottish Jesuits in the sixteenth century. Copious details of individual Jesuits who came to Scotland or who were born here are combined with a discussion from the Jesuit perspective of the preservation of Roman Catholicism within Scotland following the Reformation. The twin themes of the book make it difficult to focus clearly on either of them and occasionally blur the overall picture. This volume fills a gap because there has been no specific study of the Jesuits in Scotland. The author has brought together manuscript material from the Jesuit archives in Rome and those of the British Province and drawn upon the recently published Monumenta Angliae of the Society of Jesus. The maps of places in Scotland and in Europe are helpful, with the Scottish map demonstrating clearly that the Jesuit mission was to be found in certain regional pockets, the significant Perthshire/Dunkeld one, the area dominated by the earl of Huntly around Speyside, and Dumfries and the immediate environs linked to Lord Maxwell, as well as the area close to Seton associated with that Lord and a few others spots in the Central Belt. Curiously, the interesting map made by William Crichton in 1595, which adorns the cover and one of the plates and is transcribed in Appendix 6, is under utilised and not fully explained. Dr Yellowlees is at his strongest when describing individuals, and especially those who formed the 'Crichton' circle who all had some connexion to the diocese of Dunkeld and Perthshire and to the Crichton family who had provided the bishops for that diocese in the pre-Reformation period. This builds upon his doctoral work on Dunkeld and on his previously published articles. The 'Crichton' group was seven strong; led by William Crichton (1535-1617); Edmund Hay (c.1534-93); James Tyrie (c.1543-97); Robert Abercrombie; James Gordon (1541-1620); John Hay; and William Murdoch (1539-1616). One [End Page 350] member, James Gordon, the fifth son of the 4th Earl of Huntly, was drawn from the Scottish peerage, the rest from the level of middle-ranking lairds. Their social origins were significant because, although Roman Catholicism retained important aristocratic adherents, such as the earls of Huntly, or converts, such as Lord Maxwell, Jesuit recruitment came predominantly from the lower nobility rather than from the aristocracy. Their relatively inferior social status made the mission's goal of gaining influence at the royal court and attempting to convert the King and high-ranking courtiers that bit harder. As the Crichton group demonstrated so well, personal and kin links were crucial to recruitment and to the Jesuits' functioning within Scotland. Although family support usually brought benefits, it also had its drawbacks within the small world of the Catholic nobility. The personal tensions between William Crichton and Lord Seton, the most steadfast of the Catholic nobles, had a direct impact upon the achievements and smooth running of the whole mission. That mission also had to contend with the obstacle that at various points during the later sixteenth century neither the General of the Order nor the Pope were convinced that a Jesuit presence in Scotland would actually help Scottish Catholics. Such scepticism at the highest levels meant that the drive and resources needed to sustain the mission were not always forthcoming. At times it is not easy to navigate one's way through the maze of detail concerning the Jesuits themselves to the analysis of the aims and structure of the mission and their chances of success. In this context the brief comparison with the Jesuit campaign in Poland, where the royal family and significant sections of the nobility were converted to Roman Catholicism, could usefully have been expanded. The main achievement of the Jesuits' mission was their contribution (along with those from the other regular orders...

'Your Complexion Is So Improved!": A Diagnosis of Fanny Price's "Dis-ease"

'Your Complexion Is So Improved!": A Diagnosis of Fanny Price's "Dis-ease" Akiko Takei The frailty of Fanny Price, the heroine of Mansfield Park, is notorious. Because ofher physical weakness, she has been considered Austen's least likable and most incomprehensible heroine. In scholarly studies of this novel, critics have contrasted Fanny with Austen's other heroines, often attributing her weakness to psychosomatic factors. Lionel Trilling writes that "Fanny Price is overfly virtuous and consciouslyvirtuous" and diat "Fanny's debility becomes die more striking when we consider that no quality ofthe heroine of PrideandPrejudiceis more appealing than her physical energy."1John Wiltshire observes that "Fanny Price's stressors include alienation from a (minimally) supportive family background, inferior social status, her consciousness ofwhich is repeatedly re-enforced, and an affection which is socially impermissible. The external disconfirming experience is replicated by her internal self-criticism. These stresses are driven back into and played out in her body."2 Certainly, Fanny seems less attractive than Elizabedi Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, and her frailty is intimately coupled widi her sense ofinferiority in her 1 Lionel Trilling, "Mansfield Park," in The Opponng Self: Nine Essays in Criticism (London: Seeker, 1955), 212. 2 John Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the Body: "The Picture ofHealth" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 72. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 17, Number 4,JuIy 2005 684 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION wealthy adoptive family. Nonetheless, ifwe read hervarious symptoms alongside medical works of the period, the grounds for Fanny's exceptional lack of buoyancy can be found in a recognized disease, chlorosis, which modern medicine sees as a form of iron-deficiency anemia. Like smallpox, chlorosis has been eradicated, but it was considered common in adolescent girls in the eighteendi and nineteendi centuries. Its most easily recognizable symptom was a pale complexion , as suggested by its popular names "the virgin's disease" and "green sickness." Mansfield Park focuses on Fanny's history from the age of sixteen to nearly nineteen, from puberty to the beginning of adultiiood, the very age thought most vulnerable to this disease. Let me begin die presentation ofthis tentative theory by examining a passage from volume 2, chapter 3, where Edmund Bertram reports Sir Thomas Bertram's admiration: 'Your uncle diinks you very pretty, dear Fanny .... Your uncle never did admire you till now—and now he does. Your complexion is so improved!—and you have gained so much countenance!"3 This comment hints that Fanny's complexion has been so bad as to impair her looks. In fact, her waxen complexion is repeatedly referred to in the novel, from girlhood, when she is described as having "no glow of complexion" (12), to Henry Crawford 's observation that her complexion is "less blooming than it ought to be" (409-10). The most likely contemporary diagnosis of her paleness would be chlorosis, a disease closely connected widi women's sexuality. Reading Fanny as chlorotic opens die possibility of a new perspective on not only Fanny's character but also on Austen's views on the awakening of women's sexuality and the management of women's health. Chlorosis, popularly known as the white fever, the virgin's disease, or the love fever, was traditionally understood to be a disease peculiar to young women, especially girls in puberty. Edward Shorter's study shows that the Greeks observed various symptoms in young women, such as a greenish complexion, suppressed menses, and pica—a cravingfor inedible substances, commonly clay and soil.4 The Hippocratic theory was that menstruation was hampered by sexual abstinence; as a result, superfluous blood compressed the heart and diaphragm. In the worst cases, Hippocrates wrote, the patients would die, and, as a cure, he recommended marriage. In the modern period, Johann 3 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814), vol. 2 in The Novels ofJane Austen, 6 vols., ed. R.W. Chapman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 197-98. References are to diis edition. 4 Edward Shorter, A History ofWomen's Bodies (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), 250. "YOUR COMPLEXION IS SO IMPROVED!" 685 Lange called it "morbus virgineus," die disease of virgins, and gave a clear description in 1554.5 In 1615, Jean Varandal, a professor at Montpellier, invented the term "chlorosis...

Nineteenth-Century Iranian Jewry: Statistics, Geographical Setting, and Economic Basis

ABSTRACTThis study seeks to establish some facts concerning Iranian Jewry during the nineteenth century. Numerically, the Jews constituted a small component of Iranian society: they numbered about 40,000 souls, that is, 0.4 per cent of the total population. Still, Jews lived throughout Iran—mainly in the central and western regions of the country—and were visible in some major cities. Indeed, they followed various professions, some of which mirrored their inferior social status. They were frequently reduced to vocations that were considered religiously illicit, despised or immoral. However, by performing the roles that Muslims, because of religious or social reasons, were prohibited from or refused to engage in, the Jews performed socially necessary jobs. Like other Iranians Jews influenced and responded to economic developments rooted in the growing contact with world economy. Rather than being disconnected from larger society, the Jewish community was part and parcel of Iran's economy and society.

Aristotle's Poetics and the Painters

Aristotle's Poetics and the Painters Graham Zanker Aristotle's Poetics uses the example of painting as an analogy to illustrate certain facts about poetry, specifically epic, tragedy, and comedy. But the use of painting as an analogy, though ancillary to Aristotle's subject, should yield evidence, if properly evaluated, on how the philosopher thought about painting, because the use of a thing as an analogy actually depends on how its user regards the thing. We can legitimately infer Aristotle's opinions about certain aspects of painting from his comments about poetic mimesis, because analogy is by nature reflexive, or symmetrical: if poetry resembles painting in certain respects, then painting must in turn resemble poetry in those respects. And since, as I hope to show, the characteristics in question can be clearly defined from the Poetics, and since the terms denoting them are given consistent meanings throughout the treatise in regard to poetry, it would be all the more inconceivable that Aristotle did not mean the same with these terms when he applied them to painting. In fact, Aristotle's views on painting are important for establishing how painting was perceived in the fourth century B.C., at least in certain respects which I suggest are well worth noting. Here I refer in particular to the question of subject matter, the aspect of morality, and the issue of idealization in classical Greek painting. This short essay, then, is offered as an example of how an ancient treatise on literary aesthetics can benefit the art historian, especially by providing a framework within which the Greeks themselves viewed the art of their time. It is vital, first of all, to establish precisely what Aristotle is referring to when he says that poets represent people in action and that it is necessary that these be (48a1-6). For this I offer the following provisional and unprejudicial translation, the precise points of reference of which will be defined in the course of my argument: "either serious men () or insignificant men () . . . , either better () than our level or worse () or of like level () as well, just like the painters, [End Page 225] for Polygnotus depicted superior people (), Pauson inferior, and Dionysius people of like level ()." This passage is often taken to refer to the moral status of the characters in poetry and in the paintings of Polygnotus, Pauson, and Dionysius. This is particularly so in the case of modern art historians. Rouveret, for example, affirms without substantiation that "pour Aristote, toute action est colorée par un ethos, d'autre part, les ethé se regroupent en deux catégories principales, les et les . Ces deux groupes déterminent deux types de mimesis tragique et comique. La tragédie représente donc toujours des " (1989, 132).1 And, having defined and in this way, she tries to show (121-61) how the text illuminates Aristotle's comment that Polygnotus was an while Zeuxis was not (50a25). But there are compelling reasons for believing that the reference here is basically to social class, with a flow-on effect on moral status.2 [End Page 226] In that case, according to Aristotle, tragedians and Polygnotus depict people of superior social status, comedy and Pauson represent people of inferior social status, and an unspecified literary genre (a type of tragedy if the Cleophon of 48a12 is the Athenian tragedian mentioned in the Suda)3 as well as the painter Dionysius (in all likelihood the fifth-century painter mentioned by Pliny at NH 35.113) depict people of an average social status "like you and me" (). That the reference is primarily social is clear in that the , who are the proper province of tragedy according to Aristotle, are described at 53a10-12 as people of high repute and in great prosperity, , the "people of distinction" like Oedipus and Thyestes, who are members of distinguished families.4 The social reference of these terms in the Poetics is secured, and the relationship of the concepts denoted by them to moral considerations can be illustrated by reference to 54a19-22. There Aristotle argues that it is a prime requisite of tragedy that its characters be morally good, , in order that the true tragic effect...

African Immigrant Workers in Spanish Agriculture

This paper explores reasons for the uneven employment of African workers in Spanish agriculture. Examining employment patterns at a provincial level, it explores why there is a concentration in certain regions of Spain. Focusing on the province of Girona, the study utilizes interview responses from African workers, employers and key local informants to explore reasons for African employment, as well as examining the working conditions of African labourers. It finds that Spanish workers have come to reject farming as an occupation, just as farm employers have come to favour African labourers over possible Spanish labour sources. Whether within or outside the farm sector, the vast majority of African workers do unskilled work, on poor pay, in occupations associated with inferior social status, with short periods of employment, in jobs that are rarely part of a promotion ladder. For many African immigrants, this means they have to shift into and out of farm work repeatedly, while those who stay in farming usually do so on a poor contractual footing. With the majority of immigrant African workers seeing Spain as their permanent home, the paper concludes by noting that the work experiences of African labourers strongly support segmentation theory ideas on the development of niches for particular kinds of workers. This is seen as having potentially detrimental long‐term consequences for issues of social exclusion, as well as restricting the pace of productivity improvements in the farm sector.

The implications of mismatched personal pronouns in Chinese

This article examines the phenomenon of variation of number in Chinese pronouns. The data used for analysis is the eighteenth-century classic Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng Dream of the Red Chamber'. Research on Indo-European pronouns has shown that variation of number is the most widespread phenomenon employed to convey degrees of respect or social distance. This social meaning conveyed through variation of number in pronouns has not been studied in Chinese. The data from the novel shows that there are plural pronouns referring to singular individuals and vice versa. Although in most languages, non-singularity indicates respect and politeness, it is the contrary in Chinese. An individual of inferior social status uses the plural first-person pronoun for self-reference when conversing with someone of superior social status. The plural pronoun used by the inferior individual conveys humility. On the other hand, individuals of superior social status use the second- or third-person singular pronouns to refer to a group of individuals of inferior status. The superior individuals view the group of inferior individuals as negligible and therefore refer to them using the singular. It is evident that social meaning is conveyed through variation in number of Chinese pronouns