Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities

In Roman law you were what you wore. This legal principle became highly significant because, beginning in the first century A.D., a "new" kind of woman emerged across the Roman empire - a woman whose provocative dress and sometimes promiscuous lifestyle contrasted starkly with the decorum of the traditional married woman. What a woman chose to wear came to identify her as either "new" or "modest." Augustus legislated against the "new" woman. Philosophical schools encouraged their followers ...