Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity.

Abstract

This feminist study of relations between sacrifice, gender, and social organization reveals sacrifice as a remedy for having been born of woman, and hence uniquely suited to establishing certain and enduring paternity. Drawing on examples of ancient and modern societies, Nancy Jay synthesises sociology of religion, ethnography, biblical scholarship, church history, and classics to argue that sacrifice legitimates and maintains patriarchal structures that transcend men's dependence on women's reproductive powers.