ABSTRACT
Like Zeus and Hades, Ambrose and Christ are making a marriage alliance that undercuts the authority of the girl’s parents. At the same time, the express appeal to indignant parents to see the benefits of virginity as a marriage brings out the strategy of compensation for lost control that the Greek parents are tapping into by grafting their daughter’s death onto the successful transition and marriage of Persephone. The problem, Ambrose realizes, is that parents see the dedication of their daughters as a social death. His tactic is to show them that it is in fact a marriage. Brides of Christ will be beautiful in their virtue, they will forge a bond between their natal family and the Holy Family, they will have a Bridegroom more handsome and powerful than any on earth, and they will be free from the danger of childbearing but nonetheless fertile in chaste offspring.
