In one of his unrelentingly caustic letters, Jerome described a man who had recently buried the latest of his 22 wives in the city of Rome. His deceased spouse had had 20 of her own. In his letter Jerome subjected the widower to all his withering sarcasm and vitriol. Yet the image of that day in 384 AD, despite Jerome's mocking disdain, impresses upon the mind an essential question about Roman social life: in the age of a supposedly Christian empire, to what degree did the new religion permeate that most basic of societal units, the family?
In one of his unrelentingly caustic letters, Jerome described a man who had recently buried the latest of his 22 wives in the city of Rome. His deceas...
