A martyr in the family circle: the “Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis” and roman family values

The article examines the relationship between Vibia Perpetua, the Christian martyr of the beginning of the 3rd century, and the members of her family, who apparently belonged to the provincial nobility of Carthage. Throughout the story of the main heroine of the “Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis” starting from her arrest to her death sentence, a dramatic conflict unfolds between the young Roman woman and her father, which, as a rule, fixes the attention of most researchers studying this martyrdom in the context of the social history of the Roman Empire at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. This conflict is viewed as a violation of the power structure traditional for the Roman family, for the father of the family loses control over himself in attempts to save his daughter, calling her “domina” and imploring her, only to discover his helpless despair faced with the firmness and indestructibility of the faith of his Christian daughter. At the same time, the research literature usually fails to reflect the significant changes that took place in Roman society, resulting from the growth of independence and general improvement of the woman’s status in noble families, which does not make Perpetua’s behavior look so much out of the socio-cultural context of that era, as it may seem at first glance, should the Roman family’s values of that time of the Republic be taken as a model. Moreover, the analysis of Perpetua’s relations with other family members remaining at the background of the central conflict between the father and the daughter makes it possible to see it as the preservation of strong intra-family ties rather than violation of Roman family norms. The prison notes of Perpetua reflect both her Christian and family identity, with a contradiction between them being exposed only in a specific situation as a result of repressive actions on the part of the Roman authorities. Perpetua’s choice in favor of the Christian faith and the religious reinterpretation of some traditional family images do not appear to mean to her a dramatic break with the past requiring her rejection from all previous social ties.