Foucault and matrones. Women in Roman Religion: between potestas a potentia

Abstract

The author considers the role of a woman by refereeing to the paradigm created by Michael Foucault in The History of Sexuality and based on the principal of passive and active sexual attitude as a key to analyse the social relations. Taking this paradigm to a higher level of generality and applying it to the analysis of the role of a woman in the Roman religion the author came to a conclusion that gender was not the reason for discrimination or diminishment of the role of women in the sphere of the public religion. It was merely a criterion for assigning women certain roles within the frames of which their actions were routine and their rights the same as that of men. The author thinks that considering the links between religion and politics in the ancient Rome, an attempt should be made to redefine the role of women in a spirit of affirmative humanism by demonstrating that if potestas belonged to men, potentia, which characterised women, allowed them significantly greater participation in the religious and political life of Rome than it has been so far presented in the literature.