Desert Mothers

[3] Other sources include the various stories told over the years about the lives of saints of that era, traditionally called vitae ("life").

"[7] Ascetics also practiced fasting and the deprivation of water and sleep to ensure focus on discipline and chasteness.

Varied types of female asceticism existed as women could enter into domestic, monastic, or anchoretic lifestyles.

"[12] Melania the Elder, the daughter of a Roman official, became widowed at a young age and moved to Alexandria, and then to the Nitrian Desert.

[13] Melania the Elder is an example of female power and leadership within Christian asceticism due to the influence she held in the region with the founding of monasteries and convents.

Melania the Elder was also educated and held the ability to read and write, separating her from other ascetic leaders and women.

[14] Desert Mothers are honored with a Lesser Feast on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America[15] on January 5.

In 1984, Margot H King circulated a Study Paper The Desert Mothers: A survey of the Female Anchoretic Tradition in Western Europe.

In her 1984 Study Paper, Margot King says that she began this study in 1980 and, in the third paragraph, she writes My choice of the term "Desert Mothers" had its origin in a mildly flippant attempt to make up for the unwittingly myopic vision of monastic historians who, it would seem, saw the Egyptian desert as being populated only by men and, hence, the whole history of monasticism as being a male phenomenon.

If the male desert monastics are called "patres", why not apply its feminine equivalent "matres" to Sara, Syncetica and their followers, she wrote.

Margot Kings says that, as she continued her study, she realized that my apparent flippancy had a solid basis in fact.