La femme dans l'histoire et les mythes

The distinguished historian of Islam, the Turks and the Mongols, Jean-Paul Roux has written an inspiring comparative study of the history of women through the ages. Part anthropological study, part theological analysis and part social history, his study ranges widely from prehistoric Mesopotamia, through the Bible to Islam and Christianity. In the second part the author switches from a historical/chronological approach to a thematic one and tackles big subjects such as ‘the birth of the mother’, ‘virginity’, ‘after separation’ (i.e. after virgins grow up and become adult women), ‘the incomplete differentiation’ (i.e. physical differences that do not always agree with sexual ones), ‘the sexual union’ (i.e. marriage in one form or another), and finally a chapter on ‘the eternal femininity’ concerned with women as spirit, light, energy and inspiration. One reads the study with awe for its great sweep of source material and modern studies inspired from different disciplines. Most impressively, it is the comparative approach that makes this book so fascinating. For example, nuns as brides of Christ are not so much different from the Nymphs or Muses that accompanied the pagan gods, or the Indian ‘devadasi’, God's women slaves, devoted to a life of religion. Not all virgins offered to god are musicians or dancers, but their bodies are meant to give pleasure to the gods as a replacement gift from those who work and do not have the time to pray or think of higher forms of life, or lack the opportunity to prepare themselves for life after death. And what to think of the cultural approaches to menstruation taken by Christianity, Judaism and Islam, each with its own prohibitions but all convinced that the shedding of monthly blood makes women impure. Like most comparative works covering several thousand years of history, it is the broad sweep that provokes admiration, and makes the reader specialised in one period envious of the author's extensive knowledge at the expense of some accuracy with regard to detail. Nevertheless, this is a book aimed at a general readership among which historians will not be in the minority

Ancient history · Art · Christianity · Coronation · Femininity · Islam · Paganism · Pleasure · Sociology · Theology · Virginity test · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Religious Studies