WOMAN IN ANCIENT ROME
THE history of woman's position in ancient Rome is one of the most
interesting chapters in the entire story of her development. It
affords the most conspicuous illustration of the law we have
formulated--that nations generally come into the light of history
with their women in subjection, and that the women rebel as
conscience and culture prevail over tradition. There was a special
reason why the subordination of woman soon fell under discussion at
Rome. The culture of Greece had culminated in the establishment of a
number of philosophical schools, which speculated on moral problems
with complete freedom from the restraints that always hamper such
speculation in religious bodies. One of the finest of these schools
of morality, the Stoic system, was adopted by cultivated Romans, and
eventually by the Emperors, and thus questions of social justice
received earnest attention. The position of woman (as well as that
of the slave, the child, and the feeble) secured in this way a
consideration to which we can only find a parallel in quite recent
times. How the promising development was broken off, and women had
to wait 1,500 years for a re-consideration of their claims, we shall
see presently.
When the first uncertain light of history falls on the promontory of
Italy, and on the vigorous nation that was building up one of the
most powerful empires the world has ever seen, the women are
subordinate, but not so harshly treated as at a later date.
Letourneau finds a number of indications that the earlier Roman
family was maternal in form (_i.e._, the children took the name of,
and inherited through, the mother); but this does not imply anything
like a matriarchate. Indeed, a curious marriage-rite that long
survived at Rome, in which the husband parted the bride's hair
with the point of a spear, and the story of the rape of the Sabines,
suggest an early practice of capturing wives--a practice that leads
naturally to subordination.
However that may be, when the Romans come at length within our clear
knowledge, the woman is in a position of great subordination. The
state-organisation is slight, and the father rules his house with a
terrible despotism. From the absolute control of a father a young
woman passes to the almost absolute control of her husband. The only
difference is that he cannot sell her, as he may the slave or the
child, and cannot pass judgment on her except in the presence of her
male relatives. It seems, however, that, as Mommsen says, a public
opinion had already grown that controlled this theoretic autocracy
of the husband and father. The husband could and did dismiss her at
his will, while she had no right of divorce; but the woman who was
reconciled to the conditions was treated with respect and affection,
received guests, went to the circus with her husband, and never
suffered the seclusion of her Greek cousin. She could also bear
witness or plead, when the courts of justice developed. A few
instances of brutal treatment are preserved in the chronicles, but
these were quite exceptional.
This first phase of woman's development in historical Rome lasted
until about 200 B.C. I need not dwell on the familiar and splendid
types of womanhood that stand out in the chronicles before that
time. It is well known that character was finely developed in the
early Romans. About the beginning of the second century before
Christ, at the close of the long struggle with Carthage, the second
phase in the development of the women (and of the race generally)
set in. It is to be remembered that the Republic was still a
comparatively small power. The great age of conquest, that would
carry the eagles over the known earth, was to come long afterwards,
and therefore, in the case of Rome, it is sheer historical untruth
to represent the power as beginning to decay when the women began to
assert themselves. Two hundred years before Christ conservative
Romans greeted the woman-movement with all the dismal prophecies
with which many greet it in our own time. Yet it was not until three
centuries later that Rome reached the height of its power.
The causes of the early agitation were varied, and can only be noted
in summary here. The eastern culture that was flowing into Italian
life was corroding the bases of the old standards and traditions.
The native religion, with its divine model of a Roman family, was
losing its influence, and disquieting new goddesses were gaining
favour. In the year 204 B.C. the cult of the mysterious "mother of
the gods" (Cybele) was imported, and soon the processions of its
frenzied and repulsive devotees were among the familiar sights of
even country villages. From Egypt came the more sober cult of Isis,
another mother-goddess; and, in spite of what we later learn of
assignations in the temples of Isis, it had in it something of the
cold and chaste beauty of the moon which it symbolised, and won some
of the finest women of Rome. From Persia came other religions, one
of which (the Manichean) offered special activity to women.
On the other hand, the old ideal of the family, the very incarnation
of woman's subjection, was falling into decay. Greek and Asiatic
courtesans were pouring in, and Roman fathers must have their
daughters educated, if a class of _hetæræ_ were not to hold the
position it had done at Athens and Corinth. Women found their value,
and stipulated for the retention of their dowries, if not for other
property. As their wealth grew, the lawyers entered their service,
and taught them how to evade the inconveniences of the law by
refusing the _confarreatio_ (the most solemn form) and only
entering on one of the looser forms of marriage. Divorce, which had
been unknown for centuries, became frequent; and some women entered
upon mock marriages, which withdrew them from a father's control
without substituting that of a husband.
And, about the year 190 B.C., the new spirit of the women broke out
in fiery eruption. During the war with Carthage a law had been
passed (215 B.C.) forbidding the women to wear heavy golden
ornaments or many-coloured robes, and restricting their use of
chariots. At the close of the war (195 B.C.) the women demanded the
repeal of this Oppian Law, as it had been passed to secure funds.
Cato, however, who was then Consul, and others resolved to retain
the law, and a struggle ensued that one could almost transfer from
the forum of ancient Rome to the Parliament Square of modern London.
Livy (_Ab urbe condita_, 1. xxxiv. c. i.-viii.) describes how, not
only crowds of men of opposing sides invaded the Capitol, but the
matrons themselves, "restrained neither by authority nor modesty
nor the control of their husbands," beset all the ways that led to
the Forum, and importunately demanded the votes of the legislators.
Reinforced by crowds of provincial women, they kept up a noisy
agitation during the debate in the Forum, and--strangest parallel of
all--"dared to approach the consuls, prætors, and other
magistrates," and at length forced their way into the houses of
the tribunes and won them to the cause! Conservative patricians
looked with alarm at this new species of "masculine women"
(_androgynæ_). Cato, who led the resistance, complained that he
had to bore his way with shame through a crowd of women to reach the
Forum. If the men did not wish to see themselves under the heel of
the women in a few years, he said--Livy gives his speech at
length--let them keep their wives in order at home and forbid them
to appear in public. But there were conscientious traitors to the
masculine cause, as there are to-day. Lucius Valerius replied to
Cato, and, intimidated by the armies of Amazons without, the
senators repealed the Oppian Law. Cato had to be content, some years
later, to impose a heavy tax on their property.[6]
This agitation, in the year 195 B.C., did not aim at securing direct
political power, but it well illustrates the futility of
anti-feminist predictions, as well as the law that feminism grows
with culture. From that time onward the women of Rome continued to
enlarge their liberty and their power. After a few decades the
Voconian law was passed, forbidding them to receive legacies; but it
was little observed, and the economic power of the wealthier women
increased. That many of them used their resources only to indulge a
taste for vicious or stupid luxury is merely to say that they did
what some rich men did, and are doing. We have just as many
instances recorded of wealthy and cultivated Roman ladies who
retained all the fine character of their ancestors. Those writers
who speak of good wives and good mothers as "the gold that
glitters on the muck-heap," as Dr. Reich does, seem to be ignorant
of the real character of some of their types.[7] That famous type of
motherhood, Cornelia, daughter of Scipio and mother of the Gracchi,
was one of the most learned women of her time, and was no less
interested in public affairs than in Greek culture. In her later
years her home was a centre of intellectual life, and her letters
are highly praised by the first critic of the Roman world. The
letters of Cicero refer to numbers of other Roman ladies of no less
culture than character and civic interest. The patriotism of Brutus
drew its strength, to no small extent, from the spirit of his
mother, wife, and sister.
By the beginning of the Christian era, when the Empire had displaced
the Republic, the position of woman had materially altered. The
despotism of the husband was a mere barbaric memory. From Augustus
they obtained full control of their dowry and protection against
avaricious husbands; and from Hadrian, later, they had the right to
make wills without consulting their husbands. Their accumulating
property gave them a good deal of indirect influence on civic and
political affairs. The philosopher Seneca acknowledged that he owed
his quæstorship to his aunt, and promotion through the influence of
women was quite common.
In the reign of Tiberius a senator made a spirited attack on their
interference in the public administration. The wives of generals and
governors, he complained, went down into the provinces with their
husbands, reviewed the troops with them, and meddled with the
government. The Senate ignored the complaint. Inscriptions have been
found in many Roman towns that tell with gratitude of women-patrons
of the municipality, women-donors of baths, arches, temples,
hospitals, and other treasured institutions.
The school-system of Rome now developed to a height which has only
been reached once more by education in the second half of the
nineteenth century, and of which many civilised nations still fall
far short. For the children of the free workers, of both sexes,
there was general and free elementary instruction in the later
Empire. Boys and girls sat together on the benches of the
_literator_ in the open porticoes, and the girls of the more
wealthy went on to the secondary schools of the _grammaticus_, as
their brothers did. Many women had slave-tutors teaching them Greek
letters and philosophy. The marble chambers of the rich, with their
rare birds nesting in the cedar roof, their silver furniture and
Greek vases, and all the treasures of Persia, did, indeed, often
echo with voluptuous music, and draw their heavy curtains upon
scenes such as unthinking wealth inspires in every age; but they
resounded, too, with feminine discussions of Greek philosophy and
poetry, and Roman politics, and they smiled on types of womanhood
that preserved all the character of the old Republic, with all the
interest in art and thought and life of the new Empire.
It is so commonly believed that this enlargement of the liberty and
power of the Roman women led to a general degradation of character
that I must linger for a moment on the point. The popular idea of an
entire corruption of Rome in the first century is quite discarded by
modern scholarship. The English reader will find the finest and
truest picture of that maligned age in Dr. Samuel Dill's _Roman
Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, in which the current
exaggeration is fully refuted.[8] The popular notion rests almost
entirely on the satires of Juvenal, a bohemian writer, anti-feminist
and anti-aristocratic, who hung on the fringe of society to catch
what dubious morsels he could of idle chatter and exaggerated
scandal. It would be more reasonable to take Father Vaughan's
strictures on the "smart set" as a full picture of English
society than to take Juvenal's less conscientious gossip about a
few wealthy women as a complete picture of Rome. A careful reader
will soon see that Juvenal lashes Roman women for their culture and
for innocent fads, as much as for vice. As Letourneau says:
"Neither the satires of the poets nor the objurgations of
moralists suffice to prove that the Roman woman was essentially
inferior to her male companion." The moralist he seems to have in
mind is Seneca; but Seneca expressly claimed that woman was the
mental and moral equal of man, and he lived in a circle of fine,
cultivated ladies. The morbidity of a few of the wealthier women--a
morbidity that has a parallel in every age of luxury and change, in
both sexes--does not characterise the sex; and, as to the larger
class of less wealthy women, Dr. Dill adds: "In his [Juvenal's]
own modest class female morality ... was probably as high as it ever
was, as high as the average morality of any age" (p. 76).
I do not need to dwell, therefore, on the few known cases of
slave-torture, on the one or two noble women slinking down to the
reeking _insulæ_ in the Subura, and the few other extraordinary
misdeeds that have puffed out the popular calumny. For the general
character of the age one need only recall London under the Stuarts,
or under the Georges. It was an age of great luxury (falling short,
however, of the same class in modern New York) and great laxity, and
the blame must be laid on the rigorous and tyrannical old idea of
marriage, as well as on the familiar causes. But the idea that this
condition of Roman society continued to the end of the Pagan Empire
is grotesquely untrue. Before the end of the first century, under
Stoic influence, the standard of character rose once more, Roman
society was purged, and in the last phase of the feminist movement
at Rome a general level of morality and philanthropy was reached
that will bear comparison with modern times. Both the historians of
the time, Tacitus and Suetonius, expressly describe the reform, and
every historian knows that Rome went on to a greater height (apart
from letters) than it had done before. Lecky, in particular, has
done justice to the way in which the Stoic doctrine of the
brotherhood of men found expression in the condemnation of slavery,
the imperial abolition of most of the old abuses, the care of the
aged and ailing, and a hundred works of justice and mercy.
In this remarkable fervour for social justice woman was bound to
find profit. The service done to her consisted mainly in providing
a sounder basis for the liberty and power which she had won, largely
by the equivocal aid of the growing laxity in regard to marriage.
The Stoics--philosophers, lawyers, and emperors--believed in the
equality of men and women. Antoninus Pius embodied in one of his
judgments the common Stoic sentiment that fidelity was equally
expected of husband and wife. The great Stoic jurist, Gaius,
severely criticised the older Roman law, that dealt unequally with
man and woman, and "scouted the popular apology for it in the
mental inferiority of the female sex," says Sir Henry Maine.[9]
Dion Chrysostom called for the legal suppression of prostitution.
Briefly, the Stoics, who controlled the legal and imperial courts
for more than a century, completed the work of putting woman on a
level of legal and social equality to man, and their world
included--as the letters and writings of Plutarch, Seneca, Tacitus,
and Pliny show--a large number of women of equal culture and
character.
Thus Rome had completely removed the sex-disability of its women
while it was still in the fulness of power, and as a direct
consequence of its later moral culture. That this emancipation did
not include the granting of political power can cause no surprise to
those who know the history of Rome. Since the fall of the Republic
the men themselves had no political power, and, therefore, the women
had no sex-disability on this side to agitate against. It is true
that the imperial purple was held exclusively by men, and the great
administrative offices were open to men alone. Against this
arrangement women may have protested; but we should hardly expect
such a protest until a more advanced stage of evolution; and, in
point of fact, the more ambitious women had a great deal of indirect
power. Even before the fall of the Republic we find notices of what
we should now call "women's clubs" (_senatus matronarum_),
and when power was concentrated in an hereditary monarchy the royal
women had immense influence over it. Women agitated in municipal
elections, as we saw, controlled small towns in the character of
municipal patrons, and influenced the choice of quæstors, prætors,
and tribunes. With this large measure of influence for the wealthier
women, and with the general admission of her equal mental capacity
to men, it was natural for woman to cease from agitation; the mass
of the women, who had not these opportunities, were in no worse
plight, politically, than their husbands. Until government by
popular representatives was once more adopted or demanded we can
hardly look for a further agitation. But the Roman Empire was now
beginning to decay, and the cause of woman was lost in the general
catastrophe.
In speaking of decay as setting in immediately after the completion
of woman's emancipation I need hardly recall my protest against
connecting the two. The decay of the Roman Empire was due to causes
that are plainly set forth by modern historians like Boissier and
Schultze, and that have nothing whatever to do with the emancipation
of woman. No serious historian ever dreamed of such a notion until
the modern feminist movement arose. In point of fact, the
emancipation of woman was completed long before Rome passed the
height of its power. What the Stoics did was rather to find a
healthy moral basis for the liberty that had already been won. I
cannot go into the complex causes of the decay of the Empire in
Europe, but will only say that it is traced to political, economic,
and physical degeneration, with which the position of woman is
absolutely unconnected. To the very end Roman women retained their
culture, character, and influence; and the last glimpses we get (in
Symmachus and Macrobius) of Pagan Rome, before the Goths invade it,
leave with us a memory of a sober, cultivated, humane society,
unconscious that the wheels of fate are making so appalling a
revolution.
Thus, as I said in the beginning, the woman-movement of that older
empire broke up only because its civilisation was broken. Rome had
carried the cause of woman's emancipation to a great height, and,
had a fresh civilisation succeeded at once to the heritage, as
Greece succeeded Rome, the story would have been completed long ago.
Unhappily, Roman civilisation was replaced by a fresh barbarism, and
Europe fell with terrible rapidity into the swamp of the Middle
Ages. Women sank back all over Europe into a state of such
subordination that fourteen hundred years after the fall of Rome
there was not a civilisation in the world that would grant her the
least semblance of that legal and mental equality with man which she
had laboriously won nearly 2,000 years before. The cause of woman
passed into an abyss, from which it is only now emerging afresh. How
that came about, and why it lingered so long in the abyss, we have
now to see.