During labor Emmelia experienced a vision from "a person of greater than human shape and form" wherein this being called her daughter by the name of Thecla. This created quite a bond between mother and child which eventually led Macrina to decide never to leave Emmelia's side. Gregory notes that, "In all of these affairs, Macrina was a sharer of her mother's toils, taking on part of her cares and lightening the heaviness of her griefs" (St. Macrina, 79). .
St. Macrina the Younger is an excellent example of one of the few women who had the complete support of her family. Ever faithful and always giving everything she had to those in need, she was deserving of being written down in history by her brother St. Gregory the bishop.
St. Perpetua was zealously religious and her life revolved around herself and her relationship with Christ. Although her family did play an important role in her life, Perpetua seemed always as if she was not affected. Her father played the most important part and he was also the one Perpetua wrote about and the one she pitied. Because her father was pagan he did not support St. Perpetua and her decision to die in the name of God. Perpetua constantly wrote things about her father in her journal, "And I grieved for my father's sake, because he alone would not have joy in my suffering" (St. Perpetua, 72). She also has this to say about him, "And I was grieved for my father's plight, as if I had been struck myself, so did I grieve for the sorrow that had come on his old age" (St. Perpetua, 72). She does not give her father reasons besides the obvious for what she is doing and she does not say much to her father, making it seem as if she did not care for his opinions and damnations but her constant pity and melancholy on behalf of her father evidences the fact that he does affect her life in some way. .
Perpetua's constant love of her family can even overcome a father's damnation.
