""The author has written a book densely packed with information and theoretical discussions which will be of great interest to a diverse audience. Classicists, anthropologists, scholars of gender and of modern Greece will all find new consideration of old topics and theories relevant to their fields. [.] This book is large, rich and well documented and will repay careful reading by classicists, anthropologists and other academics. It vigorously challenges our conventional wisdom that Greek women's subliminal contestation of patriarchy via ritual reveals them as feminists avant la lettre. [.] Putting this hoary notion to rest is certainly among the more important features of this study."Allaire B.

StallsmithAssociate Professor of History, Towson University, USA"Among the greatest contributions that Dr. Hyland makes to classical scholarship in this book are the copiously documented records of her fieldwork at seven contemporary agrarian festivals (two of them never before recorded), which she then compares to seven ancient agrarian festivals. [.] [The book] provides us with new ways of interpreting some of the core events of Classical Greek culture, its festivals."Dr E.J.W. BarberProfessor Emerita of Archaeology and Linguistics,Occidental College, USA"Rather than a single dominant position, that of males, across the whole of Greek life, Hyland details the respective male and female spheres, indicating how men lose power in the female sphere, and how women side-step or undermine the male sphere under certain circumstances.

Crucial questions include from what position does one assess such gendered power relations?"Professor Carole CusackUniversity of Sydney".