Resumen de The Male Social Investment in Marriage: The First Book of Soranus' Gynaecia as a Manual for finding the Perfect Wife
This paper proposes a new research perspective on ancient gynaecological treatises based on the reconstruction of the substantial male economic and social interest in gynaecological care. The study focuses on the Gynaecia of Soranus of Ephesus, the most comprehensive work on ancient gynaecology that has been handed down to us from the ancient world. This manual of gynaecology and obstetrics in four books, datable to around the end of the first century CE, analyses the phenomenon of motherhood from menarche to the first years of the lives of the children. More specifically, this paper focuses on the first book of the work, examining the female physiological phase from menarche to pregnancy. This paper applies an approach of study that involves a new methodological collaboration between social history and the history of medicine to provide the study of ancient gynaecology with a new and broader analysis approach.
