The rape of the sabine women: Did you mean...?

In many cultures of antiquity women had to battle the disadvantages of rules and conventions made for men and by men who dominated government, public life, and society. Nevertheless, many ancient religions had powerful female goddesses like...

Inanna and Su-kale-tuda (circa 1800 BCE) is a Mesopotamian myth dealing with rape and justice in ancient Sumer. The work has been interpreted as an astral myth or a figurative account of the rise of the southern states against Akkad, but...

Rome began as a small city on the banks of the Tiber River in Italy. The Latin tribes (also known as the Latini or Latians) inhabited the region c. 1000 BCE but the founding of the city is dated to 753 BCE. The family was the center and foundation...

Family planning was a topic of vital importance in the ancient Mediterranean. Some of the earliest medical literature from ancient Greece and Rome deals with fertility and reproductive health. Among the numerous treatments and procedures...

Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in Judea in the 1st century CE and spread to the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire and beyond. In these cities, non-Jews, Gentiles, wanted to join the movement, and these Gentile-Christians soon outnumbered...

This collection presents biographies of 21 famous women from world history but those included represent only a small fraction of the many women, from ancient times to the present, who have made a lasting impression on the people of their...

Jamestown brides (also known as tobacco brides) were young, single women transported from England to the Jamestown Colony of Virginia between 1620-1624 to be married to male colonists already established there. The women themselves had their...

A Very Useful Epistle (Epistre tres utile, 1539) is an open letter by the female reformer Marie Dentière (l. c. 1495-1561) to Marguerite of Navarre (l. 1492-1549) advocating for a greater role for women in the work of the Protestant Reformation...

In this gallery, we showcase images of 30 influential women from the Middle Ages. Usually dated from c. 500 to c. 1500, this was a complex and transformative period in European history filled with political turmoil and dynamic social and...

The high status of women in ancient Egypt was reflected in many aspects of the culture but, notably, in the number of female deities who embodied the concept of the Divine Feminine and were honored by both women and men. Women were regarded...