The Meanings of Softness: Some Remarks on the Semantics of mollitia

A key term in the sex/gender system informing the Latin textual tradition is the adjective mollis (‘soft’) along with its adverb molliter, the abstract noun mollitia or mollities, and the verb mollire. When referring to human beings, this set of words is closely associated with femininity, and the attribution of mollitia to men assigns a range of qualities to them which are marked in Roman terms as woman-like: physical attributes of softness and tenderness; behaviors or characteristics such as timidity, selfindulgence, or lack of self-control; an erotic style marked as feminine but in connection with female sexual partners (the “womanish womanizer” is a distinct stereotype in Latin literature); and the specific pleasure of being sexually penetrated. In what follows, rather than aiming for a thorough lexical analysis, I highlight some aspects of the semantics of mollitia which are most relevant to the sex/gender system, and suggest in a selectively illustrative manner some of the ways in which the lexicographical resources long available to classical philologists can be supplemented by tools which have been developed by linguists working in the field of lexi-