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Roman women

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Roman women from the beginning to the end of the republic.
Now that we have seen a lot about marriage, let’s have a look to the Roman woman and try to understand how she was and what kind of life she led. It is not very easy to find their history. One has to discover it little by little, a new here and a new there, sketchy information, only what was inserted in the history of their famous or infamous husbands, but at the end of our research we succeed to learn a lot about them.
Roman and Etruscan women were quite different from the rest of their Mediterranean sisters. First of all they enjoyed a certain degree of freedom. Not of course the kind that we have today, but they could leave their house and go around visiting friends and shopping every time they felt so; they had never been strictly kept close in their home as at those times Greek women were.
This difference between the Roman women and the others is even reflected in the Roman house. Here no closed Gynecaeum, no women’s quarters. The Roman house was open to all the people living in it and to their friends without sex distinction. Here the woman was really her husband’s partner and with him she shared his life,
It is evident that this independence of the roman women was also a consequence of the fact that they had their own money and some time their fortune was even greater than their husbands’ one. Really, for the laws they could not dispose of it, but through some artifice, like having it administered by some man who had been chosen by her, by her paid and whom was at her orders, she could do whatever she wanted. Some were even entitled to legally administer their estates in first person as Livia who was very rich and through a law issued by Augustus was entitled to manage directly all her business.
They didn’t stop at this because, often, they were the ones that managed all the family’s business and some of them were very good at it. For a long time Cicero’s wife did it, but she was not very honest and for all transaction she always succeeded in setting aside something for herself. A percent of course, but when Cicero discovered her larceny he became so furious that he divorced her.
However this happened at the end of the republic, but in the ancient time of Rome many were the great and much admired women we meet in the Roman history starting from Tanaquilla, the Etruscan wife of a man, Luchmon, who, son of an Etruscan lady and of a Greek immigrate, in Tarquinia, Tanquilla town, was considered a stranger and barred from any important position. As that was as the matters stood his wife persuaded her husband to come to Rome, which at this moment was quite a brand new place and offered more opportunities. Once arrived there, she helped him to become King with the name of Lucio Tarquinio Prisco.
Tanaquilla was certainly a very special woman and was a magnificent queen, But how can we forget the courageous Clelia who stunned Posenna by her daring, or the virtuous Lucretia who having been raped called her father and husband and before their own eyes, killed herself? Among Romans there was always much admiration for those women and with them they highly regarded and respected their mothers, wives and daughters. We must however also add that these matrons earned it by their behavior. It is sure that for a long time the moral was highly observed at Rome.
For centuries marriage and family were much respected and valued. Of course from time to time some husbands might indulge in some extramarital affairs, but it was limited to pleasant adventures with handsome girls and boys slaves and it didn’t leave any traces in the life of all people involved Anyway these distractions were immediately excused by their sweet wives.
Up to the decadence of the republic, exception done for some important scandals, there was nothing that would held any “Matrona” in low esteem. These ladies were the high society families’ spouses and mothers, and, at those times, to obtain something more than a smile from one of them, the man must at least rape her.
As always, with the passing of time things changed, and the behaviors became more lax. Women began to look more kindly toward their suitors. Of course then it became always more difficult for the “patter families” to restrain the women’ requests of more freedom and more amusements. Even unmarried girls wanted to take part to feasts and banquets. In vain Vero put fathers in guard against this trend saying that the ears of the virgins must not be offended by Venus’ language. Certainly the need to vouch such an advice proved that by then young girls did not spend much time spinning wool in heir rooms.
There were also some father who, approving Varro’s ideas, checked carefully if the dinners to which they would bring their daughters was a quiet affair and if the guests were appropriate and well behaved. But it is also sure that at the end of the republic many of the Roman marriageable girls assisted to the lively convivial reunion and, without blushing, lent their ears to the explicit and allusive talks that, when the wine set their blood boiling, the young men exchanged among them. Then, when the epoch beauties were safely married, they went everywhere with their husbands and Martial tells to have seen them excited beyond any decency when, to amuse the guests, the Gaditan girls executed their dances in a provocative way.