Dangerous gifts : gender and exchange in ancient Greece / Deborah Lyons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lyons, Deborah J.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gifts--Greece--History.

Gifts.

Ceremonial exchange--Greece--History.

Ceremonial exchange.

Barter--Greece--History.

Barter.

Sex role--Greece.

Sex role.

History.

Greece--Social life and customs.

Greece.

Manners and customs.

Physical Description:

xiii, 166 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2012.

Summary:

Deianeira sends her husband Herakes a poisoned robe. Eriphyle trades the life of her husband Ampbiaraos for a golden necklace. Atreus's wife Aerope gives away the token of his sovereignty, a lamb with a golden fleece, to his brother Thyestes, who has seduced her. Gifts and exchanges always involve a certain risk in any culture, but in the ancient Greek imagination, women and gifts appear to be a particularly deadly combination.

This book explores the role of gender in exchange as represented in ancient Greek culture, including Homeric epic and tragedy, non-literary texts, and iconographic and historical evidence of various kinds. Using extensive insights from anthropological work on marriage, kinship, and exchange, as well as ethnographic parallels from other traditional societies, Deborah Lyons probes the gendered division of labor among both gods and mortals, the role of marriage (and its failure) in transforming women from objects to agents of exchange, the equivocal nature of women as exchange partners, and the importance of the sister-brother bond in understanding the economic and social place of women in ancient Greece. Her findings not only enlarge our understanding of social attitudes and practices in Greek antiquity but also demonstrate the applicability of ethnographic techniques and anthropological theory to the study of ancient societies.

Deborah Lyons is Associate Professor of Classics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is the author of Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult and coeditor (with Raymond Westbrook) of Women and Property in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Societies. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Gender and Exchange 7

Chapter 2 Marriage and the Circulation of Women 22

Chapter 3 Women in Homeric Exchange 53

Chapter 4 Women and Exchange in the Odyssey: From Gifts to Givers 65

Chapter 5 Tragic Gifts 77

Chapter 6 A Family Romance 91

Chapter 7 Conclusion: The Gender of Reciprocity 110.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780292729674

0292729677

9780292735545

0292735545

OCLC:

754105734