The key premise of Social Control in Late Antiquity is that the household and its matrix, which historians often characterize as most relevant during the first two to three centuries of Christianity, continued to play major constitutive roles in post-Constantinian Christian society. This volume of essays, edited by Kate Cooper and Jamie Wood, explores the ideologies and practices that sustained unequal social relationships within establishments such as households, schools, and monasteries in the late antique Christian world.

Part 1 examines the normative roles for women and children within Christian households. Individual studies range from examinations of the physical punishment and confinement of women for transgressions as forms of discipline and social reinforcement (Julia Hillner, Vasiliki Limberis), male predations on women within Christian matrimony (Kate Cooper), and how Christians fashioned cultures of mutuality and community by drawing upon the ideology of chattel slavery (Jonathan Tallon).

Part 2 addresses how late antique Christians came to terms with the translation of forms of dependence associated with slavery to new Christian institutions such as the monastery. The heads of monasteries acted in essence as patresfamilias who disciplined fellow Christians even as they sought to create and maintain idealized forms of Christian community (Chris L. de Wet, Lillian L. Larsen, Maria Chiara Giorda).

The Christian school was another institution that was shaped by preexisting social beliefs and practices, in this case the traditional use of physical punishment as a form of discipline by pedagogues and grammarians. Christian teachers correspondingly employed a range of psychological pressuring tools that instilled fear, love, anger, and guilt in order to promote Christian learning among young pupils and churchgoers, including catechumens (Blake Leyerle, Jamie Wood, Aaron P. Johnson, Blossom Stefaniu, Melissa Markauskas).

Part 4 explores how the literary celebrations of Christian heroines, martyrs, and virgins on the part of mostly male authors served to legitimize the latter's authority and enabled them to exercise social control over their respective communities (James Corke-Webster, David Natal, Thomas Dimambro). These fine individual studies successfully illuminate the complexities of their case samples and support the main argument of the volume. Collectively, they serve as a reminder that any historical treatment of the rise of imperial Christianity that highlights the figure of the civic bishop and his public dealings still needs to include in its consideration the extent to which beliefs and practices associated with the domus, villa, and the classroom long continued to shape Christian monastic life and cultures in late antiquity.