Quotes by Women Historians

Strabo, traveling in North Africa … [did not find] its women in the army but found that they ruled the country politically, while the men were still without significance in the state, occupying themselves largely with body care and hair-do, greedy for golden jewelry with which to bedeck themselves. The Berbers of our times....[,] near the Atlas Mountains, … have preserved a strong gynocracy. In some Tuareg tribes, the women perpetuate the old culture and know Old Libyan writing and literature. Their men wear veils and remain illiterates.

Wine is the liquid form of the Goddess Tara, who is the saviour of all living creatures, the mother of all enjoyment and Release, the destroyer of dangers and disease, who burns up all sins and purifies the worlds, O Beloved, who grants all success and increases knowledge, understanding and learning.

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty

Without will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes.

Gertrude Himmelfarb

The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do it is destroyed, laid waste or eaten within twenty-four hours.

Alexandra Hasluck

She was an Amazon. Her whole life was spent riding at breakneck speed along the wilder shores of love. For her, each new affair was an encampment set up along the way; sometimes a palace, sometimes a tent, but always the supreme refuge.

A totally unexpected development followed; the Queen and the Irish people fell in love with each other. The affection was brief, the participants unsuited, the episode soon forgotten and the course of history uninfluenced, but for a few days in August, 1849, the attraction was a reality.

Cecil Woodham-Smith

And last, we must bear in mind that the relationships between perception, thought, emotion, and behavior are neither automatic nor consistent. In many cases they are demonstrably affected or directed by culture and socialization. We don't just want what we want because we want it; we want what we want because that's what we've learned to want.

We urgently need a debate about the best ways of supporting families in modern America, without blinders that prevent us from seeing the full extent of dependence and interdependence in American life. As long as we pretend that only poor or abnormal families need outside assistance, we will shortchange poor families, overcompensate rich ones, and fail to come up with effective policies for helping families in the middle.

Stephanie Coontz

More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life...

Barbara W. Tuchman