We have seen a little of what these women were and what they did. What
they suffered can be better gathered from a glance at their position
and the share they had in the liberties they had done so much to
foster and save. Of freedom the Roman woman of earlier times had none
at all, though she was not secluded like her Athenian sisters, and
her place in the family was a better one. Her character was formed,
like that of our Puritan mothers, in times of toil and danger, when
she worked side by side with men for a common end, and, in both, their
strength of purpose and spirit of heroic sacrifice lasted long after
the hard conditions of primitive life had passed. Besides, the natural
talent for administration which shone through all her limitations was
to a certain degree recognized by her husband, and she was often his
counselor, as well as the instructor of his children, even beyond the
seven years prescribed. But all this did not suffice to give her any
liberty of thought or action, and she was to all intents and purposes
a slave, subject to the caprices of a master who might choose to be
kind, though, in case he did not, she had no protection either in law
or custom; and we all know how soon the consciousness of absolute power
warps the sensibilities of even the gentlest. “Created to please and
obey,” says Gibbon, “she was never supposed to have reached the age of
reason and experience.” She was under guardianship all her life, first
of her father, then of her husband, and, at his death, of her nearest
male relative. For centuries she had no right to her own property, no
control of her own person, no choice in marriage, no recourse against
cruelty and oppression. “The husband has absolute power over the wife,”
said the stern old Cato; “it is for him to condemn and punish her for
any shameful act, such as taking wine or violating the moral law.” To
show what was possible in the way of surveillance, we are told that he
was in the habit of kissing her, when he came home, to satisfy himself
that she had not been drinking. One man who found his wife sipping wine
beat her to death; another dismissed his weaker half because she was
seen on the street without a veil; and a daring woman was sent away
because she went to the circus without leave. Any man could spend his
wife’s money, beat her, sell her, give her to some one else when he was
tired of her, even put her to death, “acting as accuser, judge, jury,
and executioner.” In the last case it was better to call her friends
into council, perhaps even necessary, if they were powerful enough to
ask for an explanation; but “a man can do as he likes with his own”
was sufficient to cover any injustice or any crime. Even in the last
days of the Republic, when the laws were greatly modified, the younger
Cato, a man noted for his stoical virtues, gave his wife to his friend
Hortensius, and after his death took her back--with a dowry added. What
she thought of the matter signified little. It does not appear that she
was even consulted. The family was the unit, and the man was the family.
It is fair to say that it was not women alone who suffered from this
peculiar phase of Roman society, as men had little more freedom so long
as their fathers lived; but it fell much more severely on those who
were, in the nature of things, more helpless. The best they could hope
for was a change of masters, which might be for the worse; and who was
to protect them from their irresponsible protectors, even with all the
safeguards supposed to be provided by law? For this evidently put them
where Terence did the philosophers, along with horses and hunting-dogs,
that were owned but not necessarily considered.
It is said, in praise of the morals of Rome during its first centuries,
that there was not a divorce for five hundred years. The exact nature
of this merit is seen more clearly when we find that a woman could
not apply for a divorce, or expect a redress of any wrong, whatever
might befall her; while a man simply sent away his wife, if she did
not please him, without any formalities, and with slight, if any,
penalties. This did not release her from perpetual servitude, though
he was free to follow his inclinations, amenable to no law and no
obligation. It is true, however, that Roman matrons prided themselves
on their dignity. A certain respect was exacted for them, and
familiarity in their presence was a punishable offense. They took every
occasion also to show appreciation of their defenders. They mourned a
year for Brutus, who died in avenging Lucretia’s honor, and did the
same later for his upright colleague.
Many years afterward there was a temple of patrician chastity in which
women assembled for sacred rites, but they found as many causes for
contention as some of our societies do to-day. One noble matron lost
caste by marrying a plebeian, and was excluded. She protested in vain.
Her birth, her spotless fame, her devotion to her husband, counted for
nothing so long as that husband did not belong to the elect. There
was no lack of spirited words, but the matter did not end here. This
slighted Virginia started another association on her own ground, set
apart a chapel in her house, and erected an altar to plebeian chastity.
The standards were to be much higher. She called together the plebeian
ladies, and proposed that they emulate one another in virtue, as men
did in valor. No woman of doubtful honor or twice married was admitted.
Unfortunately, this organization in time opened its doors too wide, and
shared the fate of many others.
On another occasion Quinta Claudia, one of the leading matrons of Rome,
played so conspicuous a part that she won immortality and a statue
of brass. She was at the head of a delegation appointed to meet the
Idæan Mother, who was expected at Terracina, and whose coming was of
great importance, as various strange happenings showed conclusively
that Juno was angry and needed propitiation. It was decided that the
most virtuous man in the State should accompany the matrons, but it
was only after much tribulation that the Senate found one fit to be
intrusted with the office, and this was a young Scipio. Unfortunately,
the vessel containing the image went aground, and the augurs declared
that only a woman of spotless character could dislodge it. Quinta
Claudia was equal to the occasion. She seized the oar, with a prayer to
Cybele; the boat moved from its place as if by magic, and was safely
carried to its destination. The lady’s fair fame, which had been a
little clouded, was forever established by a direct interposition of
the gods. The matrons acquitted themselves with honor and, it is to be
hoped, to the satisfaction of the goddess, who was duly installed in
her temple.
All this goes to prove that the women of twenty centuries ago often
combined in the interest of religion and morals, and were quite capable
of managing public as well as private affairs; also that great value
was attached to the austere virtues. The wise Cato is said to have
erased the name of a Roman from the list of senators because he kissed
his wife in the presence of his daughters--a worse penalty than the
old Blue Laws imposed on the man who kissed his wife on Sunday. It is
a pity that this crabbed censor, of many theoretical virtues and a few
practical ones set in thorns, failed to appreciate the dignity and
decorum of the Roman matron. It was this same rigid Cato who, in spite
of the fact that he “preferred a good husband to a great senator,”
was so inconsistently shocked that a Roman lady should presume to be a
companion to her noble lord. He looked upon a wife as a necessary evil,
and declared that “the lives of men would be less godless if they were
quit of women.”
There was no question of love or inclination in arranging a Roman
marriage. It was simply a contract between citizens, a State affair
intended solely to perpetuate the race in its purity, and to preserve
family and religious traditions. In its best form it was for centuries
restricted to patricians, who alone were privileged to take the mystic
bread together. This constituted a religious marriage, and only this
could give their children pure descent or admission to the highest
functions of the State. There were two lower grades of civil marriage,
but each gave a man supreme control of his wife, without the dignity
of consecration. Whatever cruelty and suffering might result from this
one-sided relation,--and the possibilities were enormous,--a woman was
expected to love the husband chosen by her friends, for himself alone,
and a bridegroom’s presents were limited by custom, so that she might
not be tempted to love him for what he could give her. She must go
out to meet him, submit patiently to any indignities he might offer,
and mourn him in due form when he died. _Her_ death he was not
required to mourn at all. His infidelities she must never see, as any
complaint was likely to meet with a dismissal, and she knew that even
her father would say it served her right for interfering in any way
with a man’s privilege of doing as he liked.
That a woman ever did love her husband under such conditions proves
that her heart was as tender as her capacity for self-sacrifice was
great; also that men were by no means as wicked or tyrannical as they
had the power to be. We know that liberty is not always insured by an
edict, nor does cruelty or injustice invariably follow the lack of a
decree against it. There are many notable instances of the devotion of
Roman women and the affection of Roman men; indeed, it is quite certain
that there was a great deal of happy domestic life. Men naturally
accepted the traditions of a society into which they had been born, and
women did not question them unless their burdens became intolerable,
and even these they considered a part of their destiny, as good women
had done before them--and have done since. But power is a dangerous
gift for the best of us, and without some strong safeguard, moral or
legal, brute force inevitably asserts itself over helplessness. In
modern times a sentiment grown into a tradition has done much toward
tempering the condition of women even under arbitrary rule, though
their own increased intelligence has done more. Sentiment, however, was
not a quality of the average Roman character. Men were masterful and
passionate, eager of power and impatient of contradiction. To offset
this, they often had a strong family feeling and a certain sense of
justice, besides a natural love of peace in the home; but this did not
suffice to curb the violence and cruelty of the wicked, nor to render
the position of the high-spirited wife a possible one. The stuff out
of which Lucretias and Cornelias are made is not the stuff to bear
habitual oppression silently, beyond a certain point.
It was doubtless this oppression that was responsible for a startling
epidemic of husband-poisoning in the fourth century before Christ. The
women who prepared the drugs were betrayed by a maid, and one hundred
and seventy matrons--some of them patricians--were found guilty. The
leaders were forced to take their own poisons, and died with the
calmness of Stoics. Two hundred years afterward there was another
epidemic of the same sort, and many eminent men paid the penalty of
their cruelties with their lives. This mode of redressing wrongs became
too common to be passed to the account of individual crime. It was the
protest of helpless ignorance that had found no other weapon.
About this time, however, the Roman matrons took a more civilized and
rational method of asserting their rights. It was an innovation to
claim any, but they were too proud to accept the hopeless vassalage of
the Athenian woman. Indignant at the inferiority of their condition,
without recourse or refuge against cruelty and injustice, hampered by
needless and petty restrictions, they rebelled at last.