Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ: The Virgin and the Otherworldly Bridegroom in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome

The book "Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ" explores how ancient Greek girls, early Christian virgins, and their families used similar traditions of marriage to an otherworldly bridegroom to handle the problem of a girls denied or disrupted transition into adulthood. It provides a comparative study that will be of interest to anyone working on virginity and womanhood in the ancient world.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 188 pages
Publication date: 21 January 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive volume makes a compelling argument that ancient Greek girls, as well as early Christian virgins, and their families employed rhetorically similar traditions of marriage to an otherworldly bridegroom to address the challenges of girls facing a disrupted or denied transition into adulthood. In both ancient Greece and early Christian Rome, the traditional path to womanhood for females involved marriage, sexual experiences, and childbirth. However, when difficulties arose during this crucial transition, the social status of these transitional girls became uncertain.

To address this issue, Walker presents a compelling case explaining how and why the deceased Greek virgin girl, depicted in Archaic through Hellenistic sources, both in texts and inscriptions, was portrayed as the bride of Hades. Additionally, around the third century CE, the life-long female Christian virgin or celibate ascetic was referred to as the bride of Christ. These two examples serve as fruitful points of comparison, highlighting strategies employed to mitigate the tension associated with disrupted female transition into adulthood.

Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ offers a captivating comparative study that will be of immense interest to scholars engaged in the study of virginity and womanhood in the ancient world. By examining these two distinct traditions, the book sheds light on the complex ways in which societies grappled with the transition from girlhood to womanhood and the various strategies employed to navigate this pivotal period. This work contributes to our understanding of gender roles, social structures, and the cultural significance of marriage in ancient civilizations.

Weight: 350g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032474786