Wow! eBook
The Child Follows the Womb: Gender, Reproduction, and Roman Slavery
Author(s): Katharine P. D. Huemoeller (Author)
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication Date: 20 May 2026
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 0300284861
- ISBN-13: 9780300284867
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
“In this groundbreaking book, Huemoeller explores how the Romans exploited women’s reproductive labor to build wealth and power. Focused on the stories of just five women, it reveals the experiences of millions.”–Noel Lenski, editor of What Is a Slave Society: The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective
“Katharine Huemoeller’s The Child Follows the Womb absolutely blew my mind. I shall never look at the institution of ancient Roman enslavement–or the lives of ancient Roman women–the same way again. This sensitive, nuanced, and magisterial book is truly indispensable.”–Jane Draycott, author of Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome
“Thanks to lively writing and a focus on questions that are of interest to historians of all periods, this accessible and well-informed study is a classic in the making.”–Kate Cooper, author of Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of Augustine’s Confessions
“A brilliant exercise in implicit history. Katharine Huemoeller rightly reads Roman law and literature as produced by slave-owners and flips them over to see the down side for enslaved and freed women.”–Amy Richlin, University of California, Los Angeles
“In this pioneering study Katharine Huemoeller shows how the reproductive capacity of enslaved women gave them agency within the slaving strategies of Roman slave owners intent on perpetuating family and property. The result is an important contribution to Roman social history.”–John Bodel, Brown University
About the Author
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