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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Virago Paradigm Of Female Sanctity: Constructing The Masculine Woman In Medieval Christianity, Angela Bolen
The Virago Paradigm Of Female Sanctity: Constructing The Masculine Woman In Medieval Christianity, Angela Bolen
Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
The Latin word virago, in its simplest definition, means “a man-like, warrior woman.” For Christian men and women in the Patristic era and the central Middle Ages, the virago represented a woman who denied all biological characteristics of her womanhood, fiercely protected her virginity, and fully embodied the virtues of Christian masculinity. The virago paradigm of female sanctity, a creation of male writers, reconciled a pervasive fear of the female sex with an obvious admiration for holy women. Additionally, the virago model maintained the supremacy of masculine virtues, upheld a patriarchal hierarchy, and created a metaphorical space that validated …
Death Became Them: The Defeminization Of The American Death Culture, 1609-1899, Briony D. Zlomke
Death Became Them: The Defeminization Of The American Death Culture, 1609-1899, Briony D. Zlomke
Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
Focusing specifically on the years 1609 to 1899 in the United States, this thesis examines how middle-class women initially controlled the economy of preparing the dead in pre-industrialized America and lost their positions as death transitioned from a community-based event to an occurrence from which one could profit. In this new economy, men dominated the capitalist-driven funeral parlors and undertaker services. The changing ideology about white middle-class women’s proper places in society and the displacement of women in the “death trade” with the advent of the funeral director exacerbated this decline of a once female-defined practice. These changes dramatically altered …