In one respect, Christian ideals clearly departed from traditional Greco-Roman norms: whereas marriage (and often remarriage after widowhood or divorce) had been the lot of virtually all women, Christianity offered an alternative.
Two of Ausonius’ aunts never married. Julia Cataphronia, his father’s sister, lived sparingly until old age in ‘‘devoted virginity,’’ and willed her (small) property to Ausonius (Parentalia 26). His mother’s sister, Aemilia Hilaria, received the nickname ‘‘Hdarius’’ as a baby because she looked like a happy little boy. A doctor, like her brother-in-law, she remained a virgin for sixty-three years: ‘‘you always had a hatred of the feminine sex, and therefore a love of devoted virginity grew’’ (6. 7-8). She continued to live in her natal home, along with her mother and her brother Arborius, and also served as surrogate mother to Ausonius.
Scholars usually assume that devota virginitas denotes Christian dedication to holy virginity. Since Cataphronia and Hilaria would probably have reached their teens, and therefore marriageable age, in the early fourth century, they may have chosen permanent virginity even before Constantine’s legalization of Christianity. Hilaria may have been motivated more by her distaste for sex and desire to pursue medicine than by spiritual promptings; one scholar even suggests she was a hermaphrodite, hence her boy’s name (Green 1991: 310). Both women are examples of a new development in Late Antiquity: the choice of perpetual virginity (or, failing that, dedicated widowhood) and an ascetic, spiritual lifestyle.
The decision to remain unmarried for religious reasons was, ostensibly, a repudiation of the roles of wife and mother traditionally required of freeborn women of all social levels in ancient society. Men had always had more freedom of choice in marital matters, but they too were expected to marry and sire legitimate heirs. These social expectations were reinforced by laws of Augustus (31 bc-ad 14), mandating marriage and child-bearing for citizen males between 25 and 60 and for females between 20 and 50; noncompliance meant restriction of inheritance rights. In ad 320, Constantine rescinded the Augustan penalties on the unmarried and childless. His motives are debatable; there were few Christians practicing perpetual celibacy in the west at that time, and Constantine was probably more interested in courting the goodwill of the senatorial elite, who had always resented the Augustan laws, than in fostering Christian asceticism (Evans-Grubbs 1995: 103-39). But wealthy Christians who were ascetically inclined certainly benefited from his action, and removal of inheritance restrictions on the childless, along with imperial patronage of the now legalized religion, promoted the emergence of a well-documented group of aristocratic ascetics. They were few in number and did not represent the elite (or any class) as a whole; for the vast majority of the population, the age-old traditions of marriage and child-bearing continued (Arjava 1996: 257-66; Nathan 2000). Nevertheless, the phenomenon of Christian celibacy is of great importance for understanding late Roman family relationships.
Bereavement often provided the spur to recede from ‘‘the world.’’ The senatorial aristocrat Antonia Melania married in her mid-teens, as was typical of elite females; lower-class women might marry somewhat later (Hopkins 1965; see Shaw 1987a). She had three children and several miscarriages, but at 21 lost her husband and two children within a year. She then entrusted her surviving son, Publicola, to God and a guardian and left Rome on pilgrimage, settling in Jerusalem and founding monasteries with her companion Rufinus. Melania did not see Publicola again until she returned to Italy more than twenty-five years later, by which time he was grown and had a daughter, the younger Melania, who became inspired by her grandmother’s example (Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 46 and 61; Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 29. 9; Jer. Ep. 39. 5). Paula, another aristocrat, was left a widow with five children and turned to the ascetic life at Rome. She was encouraged by her friend Jerome, who led a spiritual study group of female ascetics until he had to leave Rome due to suspicion about his relationships with these women, especially Paula (Jer. Ep. 45; Kelly 1975: 91-115). Not long afterward, Paula left to join Jerome, and the two (like Melania and Rufinus) also founded joint monasteries, in their case in Bethlehem. Another noble member of Jerome’s circle, Marcella, was widowed after only seven months of marriage. Her mother Albina, also a widow, was anxious that they find some protection, a realistic concern for widows in antiquity. She urged Marcella to accept the marriage offer of a wealthy and high-ranking older man. But Marcella refused, declaring that had she not preferred to dedicate herself to eternal chastity, she would have wanted a husband, not an inheritance (Jer. Ep. 127. 2).
The males who praise these women present bereavement as offering an opportunity for complete dedication to God, something the women had long desired. When Paula’s husband died, Jerome says, ‘‘she lamented for him so much that she almost died herself, [but] she turned so much to service of the Lord, that she appeared to have desired his death’’ (Ep. 108. 5). Similarly, he claims that Melania, far from giving herself over to ostentatious mourning, laughed and said, ‘‘I will serve you more easily, Lord, since you have freed me from so great a burden’’ (Ep. 39. 5). The reality may have been somewhat different: grief and a desire to avoid society, especially pressures to remarry from well-meaning but insensitive relatives, were perhaps at least as influential in the women’s decision as true religious calling (compare Van Dam 2003a: 103-13).
Biographies of early Christian ascetics also regularly assert that their subjects faced opposition from their families, who attempted to force them into traditional roles of marriage and procreation. Paulinus of Nola (Ep. 29. 9-10) defends Melania from the criticism that she abandoned her surviving son in Rome, insisting that she had handed the boy over to God in order to save him. Paulinus himself was criticized by his fellow nobles when he renounced his senatorial seat and sold his estates (Ambrose, Ep. 6. 27), and his former teacher Ausonius felt personally betrayed by Paulinus’ rejection of their social and literary ties (Trout 1999: 68-84).
Melania’s granddaughter, Melania the Younger, is depicted by her biographer Gerontius as facing continued familial opposition to the ascetic life she had desired since childhood. It was Melania’s father, Valerius Publicola, whom the elder Melania had left in Rome twelve years earlier, and perhaps maternal abandonment had soured Publicola’s own views on asceticism. He and his wife Albina (cousin of Jerome’s friend Marcella) practiced a modus vivendi common in the fourth century: they were Christians, but did not break with traditional aristocratic values that stressed marriage, procreation, and family inheritance. Accordingly they arranged the marriage of their 13-year-old daughter Melania, allegedly ‘‘with much force’’ (Vit. Melaniae 1). The bridegroom, Valerius Pinianus, was a relative and only about seventeen himself, another example of teenage marriage for males. Marriage did not, however, free the younger Melania from her parents’ scrutiny, for the couple lived with her parents - an unusual arrangement among wealthy Romans, since married children customarily set up a separate household (Hillner 2003: 137). Melania remained under paternal power (patria potestas), as did all Roman men and women until their paterfamilias either died or emancipated them (Arjava 1998). As long as he lived, the paterfamilias (either the father or, if still alive, the paternal grandfather) had control over his children’s finances and could legally prevent them from selling or giving away anything they owned, particularly if he thought they were behaving irresponsibly. Publicola apparently threatened to take away the couple’s property (presumably Melania’s future inheritance) and give it to his other children (Vit. Melaniae 12), but in the end died repenting that he had tried to thwart their ascetic ambitions (7).
Some parents, however, were eager for the prestige and spiritual protection of a family virgin. Ausonius’ nephew Magnus Arborius dedicated his daughter to virginity after she was miraculously cured of a quartan fever by a letter written by St. Martin of Tours (Sulpicius Severus, Vit. Martini 19). Paula’s granddaughter was consecrated to virginity before she was even born (Jer. Ep. 107. 3), and Asella, another of Jerome’s aristocratic friends, when she was scarcely more than 10. Not that Asella objected; on the contrary, by the time she was 12 she had adopted an ascetic regimen whose austerity dismayed even her parents (Jer. Ep. 24. 2). Asella was apparently the sister of Marcella, whose mother Albina was so anxious to have her remarry. Here we see a Roman ‘‘family strategy’’ at work; a family with more than one daughter might consider it socially and economically beneficial to establish marriage ties with other families, but also want to demonstrate their Christian piety - which could be equally beneficial (Sivan 1993; Arjava 1996: 164-7).
By the early fifth century, refusal of marriage and dedication to holy virginity could become an occasion for public celebration. On the verge of marriage, the young Anician heiress Demetrias announced her intention to remain a virgin. Her mother and grandmother supported her (her father was dead; one wonders if he would have agreed), allowing her to keep what would have been her dowry, which she promptly donated to the church. The aristocratic world was astounded; leading Christian ascetics were thrilled (August. Ep. 150; Jer. Ep. 130; Pelagius, Ep. ad Demetriadem).
Not all ecclesiastical or imperial authorities greeted this strategy with enthusiasm. Basil of Caesarea (Ep. 199. 18) complained that relatives, when they dedicated young girls who had no inclination for celibacy, acted simply to gain advantage for themselves. Augustine was consulted regarding a widow who had vowed her deathly ill baby to virginity in return for the girl’s recovery. When the child revived, the mother wished to rescind the vow and dedicate herself to celibate widowhood instead (she wanted grandchildren). Augustine noted not only that she was essentially trying to cheat God by the substitution, but also that the choice of whether to marry or remain a virgin properly belonged to the girl, when she got older (Ep. 3*). In ad 458, the western emperor Majorian excoriated parents who consigned their minor daughters to perpetual virginity and disinherited them, which not only deprived the state of much needed manpower but also led the sex-deprived young women into ‘‘illicit allurements’’ (Majorian, Nov. 6, praef.).
Asceticism could have even more deleterious results for enthusiastic and impressionable young women. Paula’s oldest daughter, Blesilla, was widowed before she turned 20. After a period devoted to worldly pleasures (understandable for a teenage widow), she was persuaded by her mother and Jerome to renounce the world, and threw herself wholeheartedly into mortification and scriptural study. Less than four months later, Blesilla was dead - a victim, critics claimed, of excessive fasting (she was probably severely anorexic, which can have fatal consequences). At Blesilla’s funeral, Paula fainted, overcome with grief and guilt at her daughter’s death. Blame fixed on her spiritual mentor Jerome, and people muttered that it was time to drive the ‘‘detestable race of monks’’ from Rome (Jer. Ep. 39). Such incidents only fueled resentment among nonascetics (Christian as much as pagan) and contributed to the unpopularity that led to Jerome’s hasty departure the following year.
The desire on the part of both males and females to follow an ascetic lifestyle meant not only a rejection of marriage, but also the development of new styles of household. In the fourth century, women would pursue their holy calling in a familial setting. Indeed, family ties between adult women, especially mothers and daughters, were often strengthened, since daughters did not marry and leave home. Such close mother-daughter ties have been noted in Syriac hagiography, where ‘‘sacred bonding’’ reinforced both family ties and religious devotion (Harvey 1996), and can also be seen in accounts of elite ascetics. In Rome, for instance, Marcella lived with her mother Albina, gathering around herself like-minded ascetics, and corresponding with Jerome on matters of biblical interpretation. Another Albina, widowed mother of Melania the Younger, accompanied her daughter and son-in-law when they left Rome to pursue a life away from ‘‘the world,’’ first in Sicily, then in North Africa, and finally in Jerusalem, where she died (Vit. Melaniae 41). Paula left her unmarried daughter Rufina and her young son, Toxotius, weeping on the dock when she followed Jerome to the Holy Land. But she took with her another daughter, Eusto-chium, already vowed to virginity, and the two lived together in the monastery Paula founded in Bethlehem, until her death in ad 404 (Jer. Ep. 108. 6).
Elite asceticism allowed wealthy women to maintain a comfortable lifestyle and interpersonal relationships while avoiding the more burdensome aspects of marriage. The inhabitants of these early monastic foundations might include former slaves of the founder, as in the monasterion built by the wealthy heiress Olympias in Constantinople, which housed Olympias and several of her female relatives along with fifty of her chambermaids (Vit. Olympiadis 6). In Bethlehem, Paula divided her virgins into ‘‘squadrons’’ comprising ‘‘nobles’’ and the ‘‘middle’’ and ‘‘lowest’’ classes; the three groups joined for prayers and psalm singing but worked and ate separately. Noblewomen could not keep their former attendants as companions, since that might lead to reminiscing about the old days (Jer. Ep. 108. 20); but class distinctions might be preserved intact, and traditional ideas of noblesse oblige carried over into the ascetic world. Melania the Younger founded male and female monasteries in North Africa, where she owned extensive properties even after her ascetic renunciations, and later in Jerusalem. In her repeated charitable benefactions, Melania was also indulging in time-honored aristocratic practices of euergetism and patronage.
In Cappadocia, Macrina, the sister of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, refused another marriage after her fiance died, remaining with her now widowed mother Emmelia and practicing domestic monasticism with their slave women and other virgins (Van Dam 2003a: 99-113; Rousseau 2005). These included girls rescued by Macrina after they had been ‘‘thrown along the roads in a time of famine’’ (Vit. Macrinae 26). They were ‘‘exposed’’ infants (expositi), abandoned at or shortly after birth because they were unwanted or because their mothers could not care for them. In Late Antiquity, both Christian writers and imperial laws condemn exposure (e. g., Cod. Iust. 8. 51. 2, ad 374; Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 199, canon 33). The change in attitude toward infant abandonment, which had been tolerated as a necessary evil in the classical period, is one area where Christian teachings appear to have made a difference in law and practice. Rescue of expositi was certainly not unknown in the classical period, but late Roman emperors positively encouraged it (Cod. Theod. 5.9. 1,AD 331; 5. 9. 2,ad412). Orphanages, first attested in the fifth-century east, as well as monastic institutions, provided a home for large numbers of abandoned children (Boswell 1988: 228-55; Miller 2003: 49-69, 152-61).
Other styles of household combined the new celibacy with traditional marriage. Some men and women lived with a member of the opposite sex, perhaps even sharing a bed, but (professedly) not engaging in sexual intercourse. Such ‘‘spiritual marriages’’ were repeatedly condemned by church authorities like John Chrysostom (Elizabeth A. Clark 1979: 158-248), who saw them as engendering scandal among pagans and unsuccessful imitation by other Christians. In AD 420, the emperor Honorius even forbade clerics to have any unrelated women living in their household, except the wife they had married before ordination (Cod. Theod. 16. 2. 44). But spiritual marriages remained popular well into the Middle Ages, because they combined ascetic celibacy with traditional gender roles, to the convenience of both partners. Women gained male protectors in a predatory world, and men received the housekeeping chores usually performed by a wife - apart from sexual services (Elm 1994: 46-51; Leyerle 2001). Nor should we discount the emotional fulfillment for both partners that derived from domestic intimacy (Elizabeth A. Clark 1979: 159).
While Christian leaders strongly discouraged cohabitation of unmarried celibate couples, they favored observance of celibacy by the legally married and even demanded it of clerics in major orders who were married at the time of ordination (Hunter 1999). Melania the Elder persuaded her niece Avita and Avita’s husband Turcius Apronianus to live celibately (Palladius, Hist. Laus. 54); however, they already had a son and daughter. Again, bereavement might provide the impetus: Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia embraced marital celibacy after the death of their eight-day-old son, Celsus: ‘‘offspring long wished for but not granted to us, unworthy as we were to rejoice in a pious posterity,’’ Paulinus says sadly (Carm. 31. 603-4). Not long before that, Paulinus’ brother had died, apparently murdered (Carm. 21. 416-20; Trout 1999: 63-7). In ad 394, after Paulinus had publicly renounced his senatorial seat and had been ordained priest, he and Therasia moved to the shrine of St. Felix at Nola.
In a letter to two other drop-outs from secular society, Aper and Amanda, Paulinus praised their now chaste marriage. He was particularly impressed that Amanda was carrying on the ‘‘servitude’’ of managing the couple’s rural estates and caring for their sons, allowing Aper, now an ordained priest, to devote himself to spiritual matters (Paulinus, Ep. 44). Paulinus borrowed heavily from a letter he himself had received from Augustine, in which the bishop of Hippo praised Therasia as a wife who did not lead her husband ‘‘to effeminacy or avarice... but to continence and fortitude’’ (August. Ep. 27; see Cooper 1992: 156). Ambrose likewise rejoiced that Therasia had sold all her properties along with Paulinus, and was now content with her husband’s ‘‘tiny plot of turf’’ (Ambrose, Ep. 6. 27). In an epithalamium (wedding poem) for Julian of Eclanum, Paulinus urged Julian and his bride Titia to maintain the ‘‘concord of virginity’’ themselves, or, failing that, to have children who would remain virgins (Carm. 25. 231-4). The traditional purpose of Roman marriage, to have children who would perpetuate the family and its property, has been turned upside down. Yet the ancient ideal of marital concordia remains.
The best-known example of a celibate couple is Melania the Younger and Pinianus. Early in their marriage, Melania had tried to persuade Pinianus to give up sex, but he wanted to wait until they had two children as heirs. This was a traditional sentiment among the property-conscious Roman elite; similarly, Jerome claims (Ep. 108. 4) that Paula had five children, despite her ascetic longings, because the first four were girls and her husband wanted to have a son. Melania had a daughter (who was immediately dedicated to virginity) and then gave birth prematurely to a son who died at birth; the older child died as well. Depressed and apparently close to death herself, Melania told Pinianus that he had to forgo any more children if he wanted her to live; after he agreed, she completely recovered (Vit. Melaniae 5-6). This episode epitomizes the couple’s relationship throughout their lives: Melania was the dominant partner, and gradually prevailed upon Pinianus to follow the ascetic lifestyle she had always desired, despite his own preference for more worldly aristocratic pleasures. This reverses the traditional Roman marriage ideal, where the husband was to be the superior partner but was to esteem his wife and respect her contributions to the marriage.
Although Melania essentially used emotional blackmail to convince Pinianus to relinquish marital sex, he was willing to follow her lead. ‘‘Chaste marriage’’ could work only if both partners were committed to celibacy, as we see in a case handled by Augustine as bishop of Hippo (Ep. 262). Ecdicia and her husband had agreed to live celibately (they already had one son), but he broke his vow in an adulterous relationship. Ecdicia wrote to Augustine, expecting sympathy and advice, but the bishop was displeased when he learned that Ecdicia’s husband had committed adultery in anger at her, after she gave her money as alms to wandering monks and changed her matron’s dress for widow’s weeds. To Augustine, Ecdicia’s imprudence (he had doubts about the authenticity of the ‘‘monks’’) and contempt for her marriage were directly to blame for her husband’s fall. She had not consulted her husband before disposing of her property, and had deprived their son of his future inheritance. If Ecdicia had wanted to use her property in this way, Augustine says, she should have ‘‘respectfully suggested’’ the idea to her husband and followed his authority as her ‘‘head’’ (see 1 Cor. 11).
Ecdicia assumed that her vow of celibacy enabled her to act like a true widow, and a childless widow at that. In giving her own money away, she was within her rights: legally, the property of each spouse remained separate during marriage, and only a wife’s dowry would come into her husband’s possession. But in practice, husbands and wives often administered their property in common, and husbands were expected to maintain supervision over not only the dowry but also other property legally belonging to their wives (Arjava 1996: 133-56). In neglecting her son's financial interests, moreover, Ecdicia went against both traditional Roman expectations that mothers should make their children heirs (Dixon 1988: 44-60) and contemporary Roman law, which regulated children's rights to bona materna (Arjava 1996: 94-105). And like Augustine, imperial law was suspicious of the motives of ecclesiastics who wheedled donations from wealthy women (Evans-Grubbs 2001: 225-34).
Ecdicia's case was not unique, as is shown by a letter from Augustine's theological opponent Pelagius to another woman who had vowed herself to chastity before consulting her husband (Ad Celantiam). The impetus for a celibate marriage may often have come from only one partner, with the other being ‘‘persuaded'' reluctantly or not even consulted.
World History
