Domestic harmony from the first to the fourth century AD was seriously undermined by an ascetic tradition which advocated chastity and virginity, and appealed particularly to women. Ascetic renunciation freed holy women of traditional womanly duties and modes of dress and behaviour. The Church Fathers were placed in a curious dilemma - while they welcomed the idea of celibacy as a route to higher spirituality, when their wives and daughters began to renounce their sexual roles and assume spiritual and social independence, the Church found it difficult to accept. Saints such as Mary of Egypt, a converted up-market prostitute who lived naked in the desert and howled at St Zozimas all night, provoked the Church Fathers to introduce legislation to bring the holy women under control. Salisbury traces these debates and legislation within the Church, and contrasts them with the real life histories of seven truly remarkable women Saints.
Joyce E. Salisbury was born in 1944 in Arizona, but grew up abroad -- 10 years in Rio de Janeiro and 5 in Mexico City. She has a PhD in Medieval History from Rutgers University, and taught history at the University of Wisconsin -- Green Bay. She is currently retired and spends time writing, traveling, lecturing, and playing with grandchildren in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In her books, Salisbury has explored her interests in the past: She focuses on early Christianity, and how Christian ideas have shaped our lives; on the relationship between humans and animals, and in her Western Civ textbook, The West in the World, she concentrates on how to teach about the past in an engaging way.
Most recently, Salisbury has traveled around the world teaching religion and history through the University of Virginia's program, Semester at Sea.
