Roman Women
The Romans of the late Republic preserved an idealistic picture of early Rome with life centered on steady toil in the fields, piety to the gods, and loyalty to the state in peace and war. There was also an ideal of womanhood. Women, in their role as wives of farmers and soldiers, were expected to be tough and frugal homemakers, the mother of future citizens. Most valued was the virtue of the pudicitia, a word which had connotations both of fidelity and fertility. The univira, the woman who had slept only with her husband and never remarried after his death, was the ideal, encapsulated in Lucretia, who, raped by the son of the last of the Roman kings, killed herself rather than live with the dishonor of providing an unchaste example to others. Absolute loyalty to their menfolk was also expected. The women of the neighboring Sabine tribe served as the ideal here. They had been forcibly carried off as wives by the Romans but when, in the next campaigning season, their kinsfolk tried to rescue them, they appeared, now their Roman babies, to reconcile the invaders.
By the second century BCE, Rome was being overwhelmed by the riches of conquest and the cultural impact of the east. Already the Romans had a much more relaxed attitude towards the appearance of women in public than the Greeks did. Women could eat with their husbands and even preside over meals at which both sexes were present. Now there were other role models available for women of the richer classes and many were able to indulge in extravagance which deeply offended the more traditional Roman and led the elder Cato to defend traditional Roman womanhood against the pernicious influences of the east which, he argued, would undermine men's control of their wives. Others argued that it was fitting that the heroes of Rome's wars should set up their wives in state, as a glittering appendage to their own status.
In a parallel development, the wars had led to more and more women becoming widowed and so emerges a strong, independent women, of whom Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus and the mother of the Gracchi, is a prime example. By the first century, a few aristocratic women were also well educated. Of Cornelia, the wife of Pompey, Plutarch says:
The young woman had many charming qualities, apart from her youth and beauty. She had a good knowledge of literature, of playing the lyre, and geometry, and she was a regular and intelligent listener to lectures on philosophy. - Translated by R. Warner
The shift in attitude was mirrored by changes in marriage customs. There was never any pretence that romance played much part in the making of a marriage which, in aristocratic circles, normally saw an older man being joined to a girl just reaching puberty. Political considerations were important, with families using their marriage links to sustain alliances. In Rome's early history the most common form of marriage was in manus. Here the father of the bride transferred her, with her dowry, into the hands of her husband's family and abdicated all responsibility for her. If the husband died his widow and any children would inherit the plot intact and their livelihood was preserved. An alternate way of marriage, sine manu, allowed the wife to retain membership to her own family and thus the right to any inheritance to to her from it, even though married into another. Her husband no longer had formal control over her. By the first century BCE this had become the most popular form of marriage. Although the woman retained a tutor, a member of her family who was responsible for her affairs, she had some independence in the management of her business. She could carry out transactions, own property and accept inheritances.
Women also retained some control over their dowries. A husband was to keep it intact and could even be sued by his wife if she suspected it was being put to risk by his financial misdealings. At his death it was returned to her even if it meant the estate had to be broken up to extract it. On her death, it was then passed down to the children. The dowry would even be repaid in cases of divorce and Cicero, divorcing his wife Terentia, found himself financially embarrassed at having to do so. By the first century AD divorce had become common among the upper classes and had lost much of its stigma (from the days when it was largely the result of a wife's adultery).
Even in the male dominated world that was Rome, it was clear that women were given some margins within which they could maintain an independent life. It is clear that women did participate in decision making in the family. A mother expected to be consulted over arrangements for her daughter's marriage.
Women had their own festivals and cults. In the festival of Fortuna Virilis (the Fortune of Men), women offered incense and a drink of honeyed milk and poppyseed and then bathed together in the men's bath. Ovid claimed the ritual blinded men to the bodily defects of their women. At the time of the wars with Hannibal there are several accounts of women collectively sacrificing for the good of the state.
The late Republic was an unsettled time and this had its impact on the lives and the attitudes of the Romans. However, when Augustus, as part of his campaign to restore social order, instituted a return to the traditional decorum of marriage, he insisted that his wife Livia should be seen to be making the family's clothes. So, despite the dislocation of the late Republic, the old traditions still existed.