Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Lyons, Deborah J.

Title Dangerous gifts : gender and exchange in ancient Greece / by Deborah Lyons
Published Austin : University of Texas Press, ©2012

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xiii, 166 pages) : illustrations
Series Project MUSE
UPCC book collections on Project MUSE
Contents LIST of ILLUSTRATIONS; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; NOTE TO THE READER; INTRODUCTION; 1. GENDER and EXCHANGE; 2. MARRIAGE and the CIRCULATION of WOMEN; 3. WOMEN in HOMERIC EXCHANGE; 4. WOMEN and EXCHANGE in the ODYSSEY: From GIFTS to GIVERS; 5. TRAGIC GIFTS; 6. A FAMILY ROMANCE; 7. CONCLUSION: The GENDER of RECIPROCITY; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX
Summary Deianeira sends her husband Herakles a poisoned robe. Eriphyle trades the life of her husband Amphiaraos 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Gifts -- Greece -- History
Ceremonial exchange -- Greece -- History
Barter -- Greece -- History
Sex role -- Greece
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology -- General.
HISTORY -- Ancient -- Greece.
Barter
Ceremonial exchange
Gifts
Manners and customs
Sex role
Eheschließung
Geschenk
Zeremonie
Geschlechterrolle
Kultur.
Geschlechterbeziehung.
Ehe.
Geschenk.
Sozialer Austausch.
Geschlechterbeziehung.
Geschenk.
Geschenk.
Tausch.
Geschlechterrolle.
Frau.
Ritualer -- Grekland -- antiken.
Könsroller.
Äktenskap.
Gåvor -- historia.
Byteshandel -- historia.
Ceremonier.
Könsroller.
SUBJECT Greece -- Social life and customs. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85057131
Subject Greece
Griechenland
Griechenland.
Griechenland (Altertum)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2011038884
ISBN 9780292735545
0292735545