Thursday 17 February 2011

Natal Oikos Reminder

What a busy two days! A million years ago, in my "Women in the Ancient World" course, my professor differentiated between a woman's natal oikos--the family she was born into, and her husband's oikos--the family she marries into. It's a Greek word.

Anyway, I like to remind people who want to start a family that they already HAVE a family, most of the time. And we Scottish-Canadians have a somewhat threatening little poem about family that goes, "Your son's your son until he takes a wife/Your daughter's your daughter for the rest of her life."

What this means in MY natal oikos is that I've spent two days researching and writing to give a lecture to my mum's Catholic Women's League meeting tonight. Happily, I got it done on time. But I hope they don't fall asleep. Not everyone gets as excited about Sacramentus Redemptionis as I do.

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