Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman

Download or read book Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman written by Matthew J. Perry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the institution of manumission-the freeing of slaves-in ancient Rome from a gendered perspective. Rome was unique among ancient polities in that it bestowed freed slaves with full citizenship, granting them rights nearly equal to those of freeborn individuals. The sexual identities of a female slave and a female citizen were fundamentally incompatible, as the former was principally defined by her sexual availability and the latter by her sexual integrity. Accordingly, those evaluating the manumission process needed to reconcile a woman's experiences as a slave with the expectations and moral rigor required of the female citizen.