ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on a few items of evidence which should alert us to the temptation of associating episodes of cross-dressing of a different nature and always explaining them as an expression of religious ritual. The comparative studies of Ernest Crawley and James Frazer and the influential book by Arnold van Gennep inspired the research of Robert Halliday, who dedicated an interesting essay to the Hybristika and to ritual practices of cross-dressing. Van Gennep and Halliday inaugurated a structuralist approach to the study of transvestism in ancient societies which for a long time has dominated scholarly discussions. The evidence of ritual transvestism has showed the necessity of a reassessment. In ancient, as in modern times, various causes and purposes could motivate cross-dressing behaviours, but such a simple consideration has often been disregarded in favour of a general trend which reads all cross-dressing episodes as ritual performance.