Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority [Hardcover]

Robert Polhemus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 2005

Lot’s Daughters explores the relationship of fathers and daughters and of older men and younger females in history, life, art, and culture. This ambitious, daringly original book shows how humanity has remembered and been formed by Lot’s daughters—how the shocking biblical text describing the crucial relationship between that patriarch and his daughters has haunted the human imagination and shaped history and behavior right down to the present.

Robert Polhemus terms this ongoing human drama—the mutual attraction between young females and older males—the “Lot complex,” and illustrates his theory with a wide-ranging series of portraits that analyze and dramatize the lives and work of famous men and women who, in very diverse ways, have made the world care more deeply about the destiny of daughters.

In witty, probing chapters on an entertaining selection of daughters that includes women as varied as Lewis Carroll’s Alice, Shirley Temple, Mia Farrow, and Monica Lewinsky, Polhemus tells the story of men’s ambivalent desire for young women and of women’s quest for authority. It is an indispensable work on male-female relations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Before Humbert had his Lolita, Lot had his daughters. In this provocative volume, Polhemus, chair of Stanford's English department, uses the "disreputable Bible story of father-daughter incest" as a lens to understand family and gender relations through the centuries. He casts a wide net over literature (Joyce and Shakespeare), art (Dürer and Rubens), psychology (Freud and his famous study of Dora), show business (Shirley Temple and Woody Allen) and politics (Bill and Monica) to argue that the power dynamic between younger women and older men—"in which daughters fall in love with their father's lives and older men are tempted by the intoxicating power and promise of youth"—is integral to our society. Traipsing through so many fields of inquiry allows Polhemus (Erotic Faith) to find Lot's daughters "at the core of modern life and consciousness": a "Lottish spectre of incest" haunts Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, for example, while Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives puts it all out in the open (it concerns a man having a secret affair with a 20-year-old and was made while Allen was himself having a secret affair with his then wife's adopted daughter). Though dense and rigorous, Polhemus's book is also quite lively: general readers with an interest in any of the figures discussed will be intrigued, and if the book beats its singular note a bit too long, it does so cleanly and fervently. (Jan.)
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Review

“Neither cultural study nor literary criticism exactly, though bursting at the seams with both, this daring book comes across as a literary criticism of culture, brilliantly retelling one of the deep, untameable stories of those primal transgressions that form and deform us. In a rolling novelistic voice of its own, it narrates a tale of intergenerational desire incestuously conceived by the brain of the Hebrew scripture upon the unconscious body politic of western familial order-only to be passed down centuries later through the revelatory glosses a Joycean Victorianist with a neo-Darwinian sense of evolving possibilities for human need, in particular for the release of the woman from within the law of the father and its violated taboos. The author of Comic Faith and Erotic Faith carries us this time from Lear's heath to Clinton's Oval Office, and across the media of painting and film as well as print, in a gripping episodic testament of broken faith, violated psychic contracts, and redeemed filial chances. Archetype, parable, syndrome, paradigm, you name it, but in any case haunting us still, the Lot Complex is tracked into modernity, with exhibits from Austen to Woody Allen, in an arresting narratology of human desire itself. By any measure, a sweeping achievement.”—Garrett Stewart, University of Iowa

“In this wise, humane, passionately argued and eloquently written book, Robert Polhemus uncovers the incestuous father-daughter "Lot complex" at the core of western Judaic-Christian culture. Ranging from the Bible to Freud to Woody Allen, from Shakespeare to Mary Shelley to Lolita, from the Brontes to Shirley Temple to Bill Clinton, Polhemus persuasively argues that Lot's daughters have been transformed over time. They should be seen, not as the victims of patriarchy, but as the procreators of an increasingly powerful ‘daughterland.’ This is a book that every father, every daughter, should read.”—Anne K. Mellor,Professor of English and Women's Studies, UCLA

"We know the reason powerful men hook up with younger women: because they can. But in his dazzling new book, Rob Polhemus asks a far more provocative and unnerving question: what do young women want from older men? Linking the Bible and the Brontes, Lewis Carroll and Chelsea Clinton, Shirley Temple and Linda Tripp, Lot's Daughters explores timeless territory with a new and spellbinding map."—Regina Barreca, Professor of English Literature and Feminist Theory, University of Connecticut. Author of They Used To Call Me Snow White But I Drifted and co-author of I'm With Stupid: One Man, One Woman, and 10,000 years of Misunderstandings
Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up.

“Traipsing through so many field of inquiry allows Pohemus to find Lot’s daughters at the core of modern consciousness’ . . . . Though dense and rigorous, Polhemus’s book is quite lively: general readers with an interest in any of the figures discussed will be intrigued.”—Publishers Weekly

“Lot’s Daughters is not (or not merely) an academic unpacking of text. Its material includes paintings and movies and scandals—an exciting array of opportunities, from Midrash to Monicagate, each offering an answer to the eternal, critical question: what do you young women want?”— New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; First edition. edition (January 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804750513
• ISBN-13: 978-0804750516
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lot - the family line, February 8, 2005

By 

John Zxerce "[e-mail]" (Colorado ^^^) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (Hardcover)

With Polhemus being the chair of Stanford's English department, he's certainly a qualified writer. However, I wished he'd have co-author this book with an ethics professor, or an Old Testament authority, or at least someone respected in the field of religious studies - as this would have lended to the books' strength and credibility.

The reason I suggest this is because the premise which the book rests on is derived from the Torah manuscript of Genesis - and with that said, I'm not convinced Polhemus treats this text fairly. I'd like to suggest why.

To rightly understand what Polhemus calls the, "disreputable Bible story of father-daughter incest" a firm grasp on both the literary context and the cultural context of the event is helpful. With that said, even a plain reading of the text shows these incestual events are not merely the result of passions run astray.

Lot's daughters believed themselves and their father the sole survivors of universal destruction; humankind, they thought, depended on their breaking taboo by procreating with their father. As a result, they succeed in getting their father drunk, and then fulfilling their plan to have children through him. The manuscript gives no indication that Lot initiated this event, nor does it suggest his daughters were drawn to him for any other reason than their desire for children.

Polhemus places this account in the the modern context of older men desiring younger women and younger women being thirsty for the power and wealth of older men. In his words, "...in which daughters fall in love with their father's lives and older men are tempted by the intoxicating power and promise of youth".

Certainly, both of these motivating factors (lust for youth and lust for power) may be true in what we observe today in society, but to derive those conclusions from this ancient text is to unnaturally reshape the story itself.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly thought-provoking and eye-opening, April 12, 2005

By 

Michael Totten (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (Hardcover)

In Lot's Daughters Robert Polhemus has struck and richly mined the mother lode of social-psychological constructs running through human history - the Lot complex. Forget the Oedipus complex that so obsessed ancient Greeks and modern Freudians. As this book so thoroughly documents and artfully explains, there are powerful reasons why the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot's family, figure prominently throughout Western history. The Genesis 19 account of father and daughters ensuring the survival of the human species through an incestual act is an archetypal story woven into the very fabric of changing social norms and psychological dynamics unfolding over several millennia. Lot's Daughters is a riveting read about how this only Biblical story of incest manifests itself repeatedly in myriad guises and interpretations throughout religious, artistic, literary and public dramas.

Books brimming with such fertile insights as in Lot's Daughters are rare treasures to be savoured over repeated readings. Polhemus has tapped into a deep, subterranean flow of timeless human consciousness that wells up into particular times and places in new forms. Shortly after reading Lot's Daughters I saw the movie Sin City. At a superficial level the movie is grotesque in its hyped, visually repugnant violence. But analyzed through the lens of Lot's Daughters it is an extraordinary, modern-day morality play.

I also have been going back to many books I read over the past 35 years, seeing with more informed eyes a fresh look at how radically diverse authors intentionally or unwittingly embedded the Lot Complex in their stories. Many thanks to Robert Polhemus for a most remarkable map of largely uncharted territory well worth the exploration.

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost a Masterpiece, January 4, 2012

By 

books4parents - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (Hardcover)

This informative book describes our culture's fascination with relationships between older men and younger women, especially fathers and daughters, throughout history. There are many references to what the author calls "The Lot Complex," which I think is a questionable label for the common (natural?) attraction that exists between those two groups, rather than the perceived need of Lot's daughters that inspired their crime.

The author documents unsuccessful theological attempts to explain the Lot story (why didn't God have anything to say about it?), and offers a lot of interesting information about famous literary characters, authors, and other well-known younger women and older men, e.g. the amazing popularity of Shirley Temple. The author is careful to condemn such relationships as usually destructive - especially to those delicate women who are particularly fragile.

When it comes to Woody Allen's infamous affair with his step-daughter, the author sympathizes with Woody's then-partner Mia Farrow, as if she were a helpless and completely innocent victim. But the way I read the story, what Ms Farrow apparently did (force her younger child to falsely accuse her father of sexual abuse) was far worse than Woody's infidelity with a consenting adult. I enjoyed the first ten chapters of the book so much I was planning to give this book five stars, but the chapter on Mr. Allen outraged me so the book is lucky to get four stars (my generous nature).

The author shoots himself in the foot by going out of his way to excuse women and ignore feminine responsibility for their horrendous crimes, apparently as a sop to current political correctness and the traditional duty of the Macho Male hero. Was God guilty of the same mistake by failing to criticize Lot's daughters?

The Lot story offers a lot of food for thought, but respect for political correctness prevents the author from offering any new insight into the story. People normally assume that sex requires consent. Although the rape of Lot by his daughters is slightly mitigated by their (mistaken) belief that there were no other men left in the world, they should have at least given their father the opportunity to consent by propositioning him first while he was sober. Lot's previous, cavalier, attitude toward his daughters' virginity suggests he might have consented. (There is no report of Lot complaining about his daughters' pregnancies out of wedlock afterwards.)

The severity of the crime of rape also depends on the kind of relationship between aggressors and victims. If Lot loved his daughters, then being raped by them was less of an injury than being raped by a stranger he was indifferent to, or worse, being raped by someone he hates or his worst enemy. Maybe that was obvious and unremarkable to the ancients, but it's no longer obvious today.

Some incest victims claim there is a "betrayal of trust" when a person rapes a close relative. But despite the betrayal of trust I would still rather be raped by someone I love than someone I'm indifferent to or someone I hate. Love is the best motive for granting consent, and lack of love is the best motive for withholding consent.

Some victimologists say that raping a close relative (through force or deception) indicates the aggressor didn't really love the victim, and that may very well be true. But if an incest victim claims the experience was worse than being raped by a stranger, I think that indicates the victim didn't really love her close relative in the first place either.

Why didn't God guide our interpretation of the complex story of Lot and his daughters? Evidently, after more than 2,000 years that question is still unanswered. Despite its shortcomings, this book is well worth reading.

- Frank Adamo, author of the documentary "Girl Becomes Woman."