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7cc. Hospitality and Sexual Purity 
An important part of the role male patron is the provision of hospitality to those under one's protection. It is part of what the client can expect to receive. But the stranger, too, must come under the hospitality of a patron, for otherwise, the stranger has no identity, no status. Receiving a stranger as guest, especially the invitation to a meal, creates a bond within the patronage system whereby the stranger is welcomed as fictive kin. The host violates the rules of hospitality by allowing the guest to be dishonoured or harmed; the guest violates the rules by dishonouring the host or anyone in his household. (7)
Sexual Purity in the Roman Society
The honour of women in the public male world consists in preserving the family's honour by guarding their own sexual purity. Women are, in men's eyes, the mysterious gateway of birth and death. Because they ultimately have the power that provides legitimate offspring, they must be protected from outsider males and therefore controlled. Women are the weak members of the family for whom sexuality is irresistible and sex drive indiscriminate. (Contrary to modern Western stereotypes, women were thought in antiquity to have less ability to control their sex drive than men.)(7)
Highest Duty and Greatest Value
But it is women's very weakness that gives them the fearful power of being able to shame their family through its male members by sexual activity with any male other than a legal husband. Virginity before marriage is a girl's highest duty and greatest value. The surest way for a male to dishonour an individual male or family is to seduce or rape its women, for this demonstrates that the males lack the power to protect their vulnerable members. In many traditional cultures, a raped woman is damaged goods that will not be able to command a good marriage, and a seduced woman is a pollution that must be eliminated by a father or brother in order to restore the honour of the family. (7)
Household of Faith Bibliography
(1.) Selections from "Pauline Theology - Ministry and Society" by E. Earl Ellis William B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids Michigan. Copyright All rights reserved.
(2.) Selections from "The First Advance - Church History 1: AD 29-500" by John Foster S. P. C. K, Copyright All rights reserved.
(3.) Selections from "The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century" by E. A. Judge The Tyndale Press, London. Copyright All rights reserved.
(4.) Selections from "The First Urban Christians - The Social World of the Apostle Paul" by Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University Press, New Haven and London. Copyright 1983 All rights reserved.
(5.) Selections from "Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development" editors Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids. A Compendium of Contemporary Christian Scholarship Copyright All rights reserved.
(6.) Selections from "Dictionary of New Testament Background" editors Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter. A Compendium of Contemporary Christian Scholarship Copyright All rights reserved.
(7.) Selections from "Families in the New Testament World - Households and House Churches" by Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch John Knox Press, Kentucky Copyright 1997. All rights reserved.
(8.) Selections from "The Emergence of the Church - Context, Growth, Leadership and Worship" by Arthur G. Patzia. William B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids Michigan Copyright. All rights reserved.
(9.) Selections from "Evangelism in the Early Church" by Dr Michael Green William B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids Michigan Copyright 1970 All rights reserved.
"You are fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household." Ephesians 2.19
