Vidua

The primary role of this report is to provide an in-depth analysis of all the instances of the word vidua, its meanings and uses in Latin literature from the last two centuries B.C. This close examination of the word vidua in the literary sources of this period has resulted in a number of important modifications to its definition. The word vidua, which is commonly translated by ancient scholars as widow, is not sustained by the contextual evidence of the majority of the passages that do no state explicitly the reason for the women's deprived status. Instead the word is most commonly used to mean a much broader social group of Roman women, all no longer married women, a category which includes various groups of women such as widows, divorcees, abandoned women and women whose husbands have been away for long periods of time. Furthermore the English word unmarried should not be used to translate the Latin word vidua since, as I demonstrate throughout my paper, there is a clear distinction in the Roman minds between women who are no longer married, vidua, and women who are not yet married, virgines an important distinction that gets lost with the more inclusive and broader social category meant by the word unmarried.

El rol que la dona palamosina va interpretar durant els segles XVII i XVIII va ser, invariablement, gris i secundari. La casa i la família constituïren tot el seu horitzó vital, i molt rarament, sobretot les que tenien una condició més humil, podien ultrapassar aquest límit. La majoria de les seves potencialitats creatives i laborals van quedar esclafades pel pes de les estructures socials vigents, sempre legitimadores de l’hegemonia masculina. Però, afortunadament als manuscrits i documents antics ha perdurat el record d’alguna d’aquestes palamosines emprenedores, vitalistes, atrevides capaces de remar a contracorrent en una societat masclista que les relegava. Aquest article pretén ser un sentit homenatge a aquestes “heroïnes”, moltes anònimes, un pretext per recordar part de la seva vida, les seves penúries i les dificultats per sobreviure en temps difícils. Article: Gabriel Martín Roig. El paper de la dona palamosina durant l'Antic Règim.

The length symmetry of the long ornamental tail feathers of male paradise whydahs was manipulated in a pairwise mate-choice aviary experiment to test whether females preferred symmetrical male ornaments.  Asymmetrical tails were produced by elongating one rectrix and shortening the other so the tail had the same average length and area as symmetrical model tails, but with an asymmetry of 15%. Females did not prefer the symmetrical treatments and instead preferred males with the asymmetrical treatment, possibly because these tails appeared longer.  Manipulating tail asymmetry had no detectable influence on male behaviour. These results are not consistent with fundings of other studies that show that symmetry is preferred by males.  We suggest that the issue of how birds perceive the length of asymmetrical tails may be crucial for ornament manipulation studies.

The primary role of this report is to provide an in-depth analysis of all the instances of the word vidua, its meanings and uses in Latin literature from the last two centuries B.C. This close examination of the word vidua in the literary sources of this period has resulted in a number of important modifications to its definition. The word vidua, which is commonly translated by ancient scholars as widow, is not sustained by the contextual evidence of the majority of the passages that do no state explicitly the reason for the women's deprived status. Instead the word is most commonly used to mean a much broader social group of Roman women, all no longer married women, a category which includes various groups of women such as widows, divorcees, abandoned women and women whose husbands have been away for long periods of time. Furthermore the English word unmarried should not be used to translate the Latin word vidua since, as I demonstrate throughout my paper, there is a clear distinction in the Roman minds between women who are no longer married, vidua, and women who are not yet married, virgines an important distinction that gets lost with the more inclusive and broader social category meant by the word unmarried.