Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women’s Quest for Authority

by Robert Polhemus

Lot's Daughters explores the relationship of fathers and daughters and of older men and younger females in history, life, art, and culture. This ambitious, daringly original book shows how humanity has remembered and been formed by Lot's daughters—how the shocking biblical text describing the crucial relationship between that patriarch and his daughters has haunted the human imagination and shaped history and behavior right down to the present. Robert Polhemus terms this ongoing human drama—the mutual attraction between young females and older males—the "Lot complex," and illustrates his theory with a wide-ranging series of portraits that analyze and dramatize the lives and work of famous men and women who, in very diverse ways, have made the world care more deeply about the destiny of daughters. In witty, probing chapters on an entertaining selection of daughters that includes women as varied as Lewis Carroll's Alice, Shirley Temple, Mia Farrow, and Monica Lewinsky, Polhemus tells the story of men's ambivalent desire for young women and of women's quest for authority. It is an indispensable work on male-female relations.

457 pages, Hardcover

First published January 3, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Mara Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually don't read non-fiction but this was out of sight. I had never really heard the story of Lot and his daughters but this book not only explains the story, illustrates impressions it has made on history but highlights the effect of the story on today's society. I really recommend it to all my women friends and men too!

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I had this book but put it aside. I could not stop reading after I picked it up a few years later. This is terrific stuff. I am not certain how to classify it but I classify it as social commentary with a literary outlook. The section on Woody Allen alone is worth the price of admission. I will reread this one.