Abstract: Chapter 4 tells stories of mischievous, naughty and fierce boys and girls, prompting us to rethink gendered moralities and how they are learned in childhood. Systematic behavioral analyses reveal gendered patterns in children’s moral experience, for example, boys initiate physical aggression, dominance and swearing more than girls, but girls assert themselves in more subtle ways, such as through tattling and scolding. I further explore how children’s learning of authority, aggression, boyhood, and violence is shaped by their family life as well as the larger historical trends. The chapter also examines how young girls understand their own situations and defend themselves. Despite the entrenched son-preference in this community, little girls are far from passive or submissive. To honor Arthur Wolf’s legacy on marriage and adoption and offer new insights on young girls’ emotional experience, which was not addressed in Wolf’s previous works, I present the case of an adopted daughter: an “unruly” girl who defies parental commands, asserts her own will, and negotiates love-hate relationships with different family members.

This chapter reflects on the psychological, physical consequences of sexual violence in and beyond Othello—in contemporary times. I argue that the white identity formation process, and allegiance to its ideals, inherently impedes racial equality; the process itself works to reiterate white superiority. This is evident as I apply the intraracial color-line mainly to readings of Iago, the play’s most visible and vocal white other. In conjunction with readings of Othello, I look back at the transatlantic slave trade and examine the trajectory of white violence that has led to Black silence and the de-victimization of Black boys and men, which is one of many reasons psychologists suggest Black males are not always heard, much like Othello, when it comes to their experiences with sexual and non-sexual violence. With historical examples in mind, I return to Shakespeare’s canon to reflect on how early modern texts amplify the “white voice.”

Sources for children in early Egyptian monasteries are primarily textual. This chapter discusses the terms used to refer to children in monastic documents from Egypt written in Greek and Coptic. The language is often ambiguous, with terms that can refer to child or enslaved person in Greek, and terms in Coptic that may refer to familial relationships (sons and daughters) or monastic status or rank (new monks) or age (minor children). A methodology is established for assessing the presence of minor children and adolescents based on the language of the written sources.

Despite being communities of celibate individuals who had renounced marriage and family, monasteries housed and raised minor children. The definition of childhoodin Egypt of late antiquity varied by gender and status and constituted age ranges rather than a clearly defined beginning and end point. Challenges with the source material include a paucity of references to children, ambiguity in primary sources about age, and the frequent context of trauma.

This chapter examines the construction of male sexuality in early Egyptian monasticism, focusing on the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum) and the rules from various monasteries. The masculine ascetic ideal builds upon certain classical ideals of masculinity, especially the control of the passions, but purports to eschew classical models of eroticism in which the adolescent male represents the ideal sexual partner. These sources are designed to be recited or retold as edifying texts; despite their overt disavowal of sexual contact between men and boys, their retelling and rereading keeps homoeroticism and the representation of boys as sexually desirable objects alive in the ascetic imagination.