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Written by: Susan Pearson
One of the hardest things about reenactment is the difficulty in thinking your way into the mentality of the person you are trying to recreate. The two biggest blocks to our modern mind are religion as an integral part of life, and status. The late twentieth early twenty first century has come pretty close to being a classless society in Britain, if only in terms of how people perceive themselves and how they acknowledge their superiors, peers and servitors. When reading this paper on the status is Roman women, try not to be judgemental, but attempt to imagine the mentality that acceptance of these legal and social rules would create. You would have been brought up with them as a way of life. It is difficult to say what degree of freedom women actually enjoyed or what they thought of their lot, as the documentary sources reflect almost exclusively what men thought and wrote. This fact alone gives is an indication of the extent to which a woman's powers to publicly express of record an opinion was limited.
The Roman ideal was Paterfamilias - total power of the father over the family group, which included slaves and freed slaves as well as kin - and Roman law enshrined this principle. This meant that the oldest male had all rights of property, life and death over his family even if he was 16 years of age or was an old man with married sons with families of their own. He could chose to release them - in the case of women by transferring them to their husbands family on marriage - but otherwise he retained power over them until his death. At this point, any woman or child was transferred to the charge of a tutor, whose role was as guardian to the family property rather than the pupilla (ward). The Partfamilias also had the right to expose unwanted children. He was bound by law to raise one daughter and any healthy sons, but even this had lapsed by the late Republic. It was not until the third century that a father could legally be held accountable for the killing of his, presumably adult, offspring.This all sounds very harsh, but in reality this power was tempered by custom, family councils (consilia) and eventually by law. Women had no formal position corresponding to Paterfamilias, but in practice a woman tended to accumulate authority within the family as she grew older, though this would be influenced by such factors as maternity and widowhood, which enhanced her status within Roman society.
Children where praised for their maturity. Pliny writes of a recently dead girl due to be married and therefore in her early teens, "her elderly sense of discretion, her matronly dignity, her girlish charm, together with her maidenly modesty". Boys and girls went to school from the age of six or seven, attended by their pedagogues, who were slaves with some learning so that they could supervise the child's education and hear their lessons. Children of the poor may have been seen as an investment, for help on the land or for the income if apprenticed to a trade. Slaves were trained by their owners from a young age - business being a family affair in the sense of the household rather than just the kin - and nine years old Viccentia is commemorated as a worker in gold. Favorinus was against wet-nursing as it could divert the affections that belonged properly to relations between mother and baby, but it was clearly usual for children to have nurses, even the children of slaves so that their mothers could be put back to work. the free poor also used foster parent and baby-sitters, and this would have formed non-kin bonds within the family.
There is no record of any puberty ceremony for girls, but this may be because it was celebrated by women but not mentioned or even known of by male authors. It is assumed that the transition from girlhood to womanhood was on marriage, which could take place any time after a girls twelfth birthday. At first marriage would be marked by ceremonials such as the sacrifice of girlish toys. In earlier times a daughter was transferred to the manus of her husband on marriage, but by the first century BC she (and her property) tended to remain in her natal family, although it was not until the second century AD that the Emperor Marcus ruled that a father did not have the power to end a daughter's happy marriage against her will.The Paterfamilias was also legally entitled to dictate who his family members married, although it was a brave man who excluded mothers from the discussion. Marriage seems to have been a mainly economic or political arrangement, but the partners would have some say depending on age and status. A young upper class girl in her teens might barely be consulted, but widows and the divorced would be actively involved, although that match would still be a family decision. A match lower down the social scale would be less political and therefore more likely to be the individual's choice. If two citizens with the legal capacity to marry one another each had the consent of their Paterfamilias and lived together with the intention of being married, that was recognised as a valid marriage. If neither bride nor groom had a living father, the groom would act as Paterfamilias and the bride would be a full party to her own contract, with her tutor.
Slaves had no legal right to marry, but did form family-type relationships, in which case any children belonged to the mothers owner. Of course, slaves could be moved or sold even so, and had no acknowledged political ambitions of her brothers and sons, though not necessarily those of her husband. But for all its strict social distinction, Roman society had a surprising potential for mobility. Naevolia Tyche, a freed slave, married a member of the local office-bearing elite in Pompeii and died a wealthy woman having made a fortune in shipping. There is some record of female doctors as at Nimes and Lyons. Doctors could accept fees and were exempt from taxes, but they were expected to treat the poor free of charge. the only sphere of public activity in which woman could aspire to office was in religion as a priestess.
Roman men were happy to take their wives to dinner parties and at home a wife could act as hostess. Cicero and Pliny had women as friends and the fact that Juvenal's sixth satire savages women who talk incessantly about politics, literature or philogy means that presumably some of them did. Certainly Plutarch gives a slightly more positive description of the accomplishments of Cornelia, daughter of Metellus Scipio, and whose second husband was the general and statesman Pompey: "The young woman had many charms apart from her youthful beauty. She was well versed in literature, playing the lyre, and in geometry, and had been accustomed to listen to philosophical discourses with profit". Indeed many women received enough education to be able to read and write although few women had husbands like Pliny who expected his young wife to comment on his literary compositions and, on occasion, set them to music. In general in the houses of the well-to-do the kitchen work was done by slaves and the lady's task was to supervise them a little more. She wold not be expected to help her husband in his work - as a rich man he would be a man of property or a businessman. She could therefore devote herself to the social round, visiting baths or public entertainments or improving her mind.Augustus, in his efforts to return to the good old days of Rome, encouraged marriage and procreation. Spinning and weaving were seen as commendable skills, though wearing of homespun was out of fashion by the Augustan period when he set the highborn ladies of the imperial household to the task. By the early empire the consilium (family council) as a means of deciding the fate of a woman had become obsolete, as a wife was no longer in her husbands power (manus). Augustus introduced laws encouraging marriage and also formalising divorce, which had previously been entirely a private, family affair. His laws also treated men as criminals who committed adultery with married women or fornication with unmarried women. Other laws on marriage stated that siblings could not marry (although cousins could), a senator could not marry a freedwoman or an actress, a tutor or his son could not marry his ward, and of course a citizen could not marry a non-citizen.
In conclusion, the ideal of Paterfamilias was upheld in theory, but in practice women had a large degree of of freedom and autonomy, certainly by the late Republic. Wives were treated by many husbands as valued partners within the home, and women were revered for their motherhood. A lady with enough leisure could be well-read and well-informed, but most husbands would be happy if their wives deserved the famous epitaph "she kept her home, she spun her wool". According to Augustus there was too much freedom, with the divorce rate climbing and the procreation of citizens (children born within a legal marriage of citizens) falling. However, the restrictions on the women in Rome, whilst severe compared to todays standards, gradually eased and it was not until the advent of Christianity that many of the husbands absolute rights were re-introduced.
Sources:
Life in Roman Britain - Anthony Birley
The Roman Family - Suzanne Dixon
Greek and Roman Life - Ian Jenkins
Everyday life in the Roman Empire - Joan Liversedge
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