Gender and geopolitics in the work of Philo of Alexandria: Jewish piety and imperial family values

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary D'Angelo

AbstractEarly Christian and Jewish texts responded to the “family values” campaigns mounted by successive emperors from Augustus and Hadrian with varying combinations of accommodation and resistance. This dialectic of resistance and accommodation appears in central aspects of 4 Maccabees and the Pastorals, texts that have frequently been assigned to the earlier part of the second century, that is, to the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, and that foreground martyrs as the exemplars of their teaching. Both the Jewish and the Christian text give the virtue ευσεβεια a central role, constructing that virtue along the lines of the Roman virtue pietas, that is, as duty and devotion not only to the divine, but also to those of one’s household and family. The specifically post-Augustan character of this virtue is manifest in their displays of an a ideal of chastity for women that responds to the Julian laws—not only the avoidance of adultery and stuprum, but also a commitment to marriage and remarriage as long as the woman can bear children. Both likewise espouse the long term Roman idealization of the univira and both are insistent that the husband must be the teacher of the wife. Among the most significant aspects of this comparison are the close correspondences between the exegeses of Genesis 2-3 in 4 Macc.18:7-10 and 1 Tim. 2:13-15.


Author(s):  
John David Penniman

Greek literature from ancient Judaism reflects many of the same strategies and assumptions surrounding food and proper formation found in Greek paideia and Roman family values. Indeed, certain Jewish authors (including the author of 2 Maccabees, Philo of Alexandria, the apostle Paul) worked with the prominent notion that food carries an essence in order to think through the very characteristics of their “Jewishness.” In so doing, they devised similar gastronomic regimes out of milk and solid food. Yet something was also different in how food functioned in this literature as the material basis of a deeper religious bond. The three sets of Jewish texts examined in this chapter indicate how the idioms, values, and embodied politics of Roman rule could be repurposed within a specific provincial culture. And they do so in such a way that emphasizes their own scriptural and philosophical commitments.


2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 1005-1006
Author(s):  
Paul J. Weber

Laura Olson is one of a small but energetic and influential group of Christian political scientists determined to bring the debate politically legitimate called it either racist or sexist. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, African American pastors held the most consistently conservative views on family values, although they also saw the connections among crime, violence, and the deterioration of the family. Within the authorÕs intentionally limited scope, this is an excellent study, but one should be cautious about generalizing.


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Albert ◽  
Dieter Ferring ◽  
Tom Michels

According to the intergenerational solidarity model, family members who share similar values about family obligations should have a closer relationship and support each other more than families with a lower value consensus. The present study first describes similarities and differences between two family generations (mothers and daughters) with respect to their adherence to family values and, second, examines patterns of relations between intergenerational consensus on family values, affectual solidarity, and functional solidarity in a sample of 51 mother-daughter dyads comprising N = 102 participants from Luxembourgish and Portuguese immigrant families living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Results showed a small generation gap in values of hierarchical gender roles, but an acculturation gap was found in Portuguese mother-daughter dyads regarding obligations toward the family. A higher mother-daughter value consensus was related to higher affectual solidarity of daughters toward their mothers but not vice versa. Whereas affection and value consensus both predicted support provided by daughters to their mothers, affection mediated the relationship between consensual solidarity and received maternal support. With regard to mothers, only affection predicted provided support for daughters, whereas mothers’ perception of received support from their daughters was predicted by value consensus and, in the case of Luxembourgish mothers, by affection toward daughters.


Author(s):  
Roman Lutsky

Purpose. The aim of this work is to study the characteristics of transformation that appeared in the sphere of family relations in the modern Ukrainian society. The main attention is concentrated on problems of asymmetry of family status. Technique. The methodology includes a comprehensive analysis and synthesis of existing scientific and theoretical material and formulation of appropriate conclusions and recommendations. During the study, we used the following methods of scientific knowledge: terminological, semantic, functional, systemic-structural, comparative legal. Results. The research process recognized that at the present stage of creation of a Ukrainian state more family is in the process of transformation than in decline. It has passed a long way of development and adaptation to diverse conditions of existence, characterized by flexibility and sustainability. Some family functions under the influence of objective conditions disappear, others persist, still others only appear. Scientific novelty. In the research process, a number of faults and reasons in the matter of the transformation of Ukrainian families. The inability of the spouses to overcome the crisis situation in the transition of families from one stage to the other can be connected with the psychological incompatibility of the spouses, the inadequate choice of a marriage partner, the inability of families to solve problems, the low level of socio-psychological adaptation. Practical significance. The results of the study can be used in law-making and enforcement activities while solving family household conflicts.


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