This book impressed me more than I thought it would. It is, as far as I know, the only survey out there on women in late antiquity (roughly 3rd through late 6th centuries). Clark looks at patristic texts concerning women against the Greco-Roman cultural background, covering topics such as marriage, divorce, childbearing, domesticity, health, and philosophical and theological attitudes toward women's personhood. As a survey, it doesn't get into great depth, and by the nature of the sources, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions. She refrains from much evaluative commentary, but her conclusions--that Christianity probably did expand women's horizons and raise their dignity (particularly that of poor women), but that Christian teaching could be used either to reinforce or to subvert Greco-Roman conventions--seems to accord with what I've seen in early Christian writings. I was particularly interested in Clark's research on attitudes to abortion. It's roundly condemned in Christian writings (with perhaps a minority who held to Hippocratic views of the fetus before quickening), though in Fathers like Basil, there is mercy shown to repentant women. ( )