Some things are cultural: A response to comments on my last piece

This is a short post where I respond to some of the people who were not convinced by my previous piece. The gist of that piece is that the role of aristocratic women in the rise of Christianity in the Late Roman Empire has been greatly overestimated by historians.

In particular, I am replying to a common objection that the piece is underestimating the important “informal influence” women have had throughout centuries. “Happy wife, happy life” must have held true in Roman times too, some argue (It’s a biological constant!). So surely husbands must have done things to please their wives (including converting to Christianity).

I am not denying that women influenced their husbands informally in Roman times. I reserve my scepticism towards the idea that “Happy wife, happy life” was true to the same extent as it is now. I believe that historically men had much more power over their wives, even within the private realm. But let’s give the critics this: let’s accept Roman husbands were as motivated to keep their wives happy as men are today. And that through this, women had a lot more influence than I give them credit for.

Even then, the nature & magnitude of “informal influence” is greatly dependent upon what you know, are accustomed to, and think possible. In other words, upon socio-cultural factors. If women were raised expecting not to have an important role in religious matters and if they thought such decisions were the realm of men (which was the case, as I explained in my other post), it’s much less likely they would have even considered converting their husbands as a real possibility. Let me give an example: my parents are doctors. They often discuss specific medical stuff over lunch and my mom has had a lot of “informal influence” on my dad’s career. But that was greatly mediated by the fact that she studied medicine and knows what she is talking about. In a previous era, one in which she would not have received medical education, my mom wouldn’t have been able to influence my dad’s career decisions in the same way. Of course, she could have informally asked some things of him related to his career: asking him to make more money, or to spend more/less time at work. In essence, treating medicine as a black box and caring about stuff that she knew about and could have understood. But that is very, very different from actually being actively involved in minutiae decisions about his business, where having a medical background is important. In the same vein, I am not denying women had a role in influencing their husbands. Maybe they asked them to spend a bit more time at the temple and a bit less drinking with their aristocratic friends. But that is NOT the same as having the power to convert them, or even taking the initiative to learn about a new religion in the first place, if that was not something women generally had access to!

I think the broader point is that yes, some things about human nature are fixed. But there is a lot of mediation by culture going on. I am going to give a personal example again: When I was 3 months old, I almost died of meningitis. My mom, a junior doctor at the time, diagnosed me herself after 2 doctors had told her I just had a cold. The entire situation deeply traumatised her and there is a bit of a legend in my family built around the fact that I almost died. So almost losing an infant was a BIG DEAL for her. Arguably the BIGGEST DEAL of her life. Now consider this: In Roman times, families would often commit infanticide, especially of female infants. So women, with the same basic biology and instincts as my mom, agreed to have their female babies killed because it was considered “normal”. Seems like a pretty huge cultural influence here! Or maybe the new mothers did not really like the idea, but couldn’t do much anyway, as they had to obey their husbands. So much for the power of “informal influence” on their husbands then! Either way, it proves my point.

Overall, I notice this weird thing where both extremes of the political spectrum try to uncover these Truths about how women were secretly much more powerful than we think they were. They do it to very different rhetorical ends, but it’s still striking to see the similarity. I am going to be boring and say: Actually having formal power helps, having some formal power (E.g. being able to get an education) can often help in the private sphere and women’s life was pretty constrained in the past. And there is no point in pretending otherwise.