After talking with Dr. Lin Foxhall in London in January 1996,1 decided to publish this book. Though one of us teaches in Great Britain and the other in the United States, Dr. Foxhall and I both assign Plutarch's Advice to the Bride and Groom and Consolation to His Wife to be read by undergraduate and graduate students in classics and ancient history courses dealing with women, gender, and the family. When we were together in London we lamented the lack of historical commentary on these works because although they are central to our teaching, it has been difficult to decide how to treat them in the classroom,.
