Among the Romans the domestic position of women was on the whole much
more favourable to the growth of feminine culture than in Greece. They
were not jealously guarded in special apartments, but were allowed to
retain their seat at the table and join in the conversation when guests
arrived, as Cornelius Nepos points out with a pardonable sense of
superiority. Becker, in his _Gallus_, thus states the difference between
Greek and Roman treatment of women: “Whilst we see that in most of the
Grecian states, and especially in Athens, the women (_i.e._ the whole
female sex) were little esteemed and treated as children all their
lives, confined to the gynaikoreitis, shut out from social life and all
intercourse with men and their amusements, we find that in Rome exactly
the reverse was the case. Although the wife is naturally subordinate to
the husband, yet she is always treated with open attention and regard.
The Roman housewife always appears as the mistress of the whole
household economy, instructress of the children, and guardian of the
honour of the house, equally esteemed with the paterfamilias both in and
out of the house.”
“Walking abroad was only limited by scruple and custom, not by a law or
the jealous will of the husband. The women frequented public theatres as
well as the men, and took their places with them at festive banquets.”
"Even the vestals participated in the banquets of the men." Although
“learned women were dreaded,” a knowledge of Greek and the fine arts was
in later times counted an essential part of feminine culture. “Certain
advantages accrued to those who had many children, _jus trium
liberorum_.” Masculine “voluntary celibacy was considered, in very early
times, as censurable and even guilty;” and from Festus “we learn that
there was a celibate fine.” The statement apparently credited by Mr.
Lecky that for 520 years there was no case of divorce in Rome, has been
shown to rest on a misconception of a passage in Gellius. Yet “manners
were so severe, that a senator was censured for indecency because he had
kissed his wife in the presence of their daughter.” It was also
considered “in a high degree disgraceful for a Roman mother to delegate
to a nurse the duty of suckling her child.”