In ancient Rome, freeborn women were citizens (cives),The form of Roman marriage called conubium, for instance, requires that both spouses be citizens; like men from towns granted civitas sine suffragio, women (at least those eligible for conubium) were citizens without suffrage. The legal status of a mother as a citizen affected her son's citizenship. All Roman citizens recognized as such by law did not hold equal rights and privileges, particularly in regard to holding high office. See A Casebook on Roman Family Law following, and A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 211 and 268 (on male citizenship as it relates to marrying citizen women) et passim. ("children born of two Roman citizens") indicates that a Roman woman was regarded as having citizen status, in specific contrast to a peregrina. but could not vote or hold political office.Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A.J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (Oxford University Press: American Philological Association, 2004), pp. 31–32, 457, et passim. Because of their limited public role, women are named less frequently than men by Roman historians. But while Roman women held no direct political power, those from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence through private negotiations.Kristina Milnor, "Women in Roman Historiography," in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 278; Ann Ellis Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology at Rome," in Les écoles médicales à Rome: Actes du 2ème Colloque international sur les textes médicaux latins antiques, Lausanne, septembre 1986 (Université de Nantes, 1991), p. 256. Exceptional women who left an undeniable mark on history include Lucretia and Quinta Claudia, whose stories took on mythic significance; fierce Republican-era women such as Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and Fulvia, who commanded an army and issued coins bearing her image; women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, most prominently Livia (58 BC – AD 29) and Agrippina the Younger (15–59 AD), who contributed to the formation of Imperial mores; and the empress Helena (250–330 AD), a driving force in promoting Christianity.Unless otherwise noted, this introductory overview is based on Beryl Rawson, "Finding Roman Women," in A Companion to the Roman Republic (Blackwell, 2010), p. 325.
As is the case with male members of society, elite women and their politically significant deeds eclipse those of lower status in the historical record. Inscriptions and especially epitaphs document the names of a wide range of women throughout the Roman Empire, but often tell little else about them. Some vivid snapshots of daily life are preserved in Latin literary genres such as comedy, satire, and poetry, particularly the poems of Catullus and Ovid, which offer glimpses of women in Roman dining rooms and boudoirs, at sporting and theatrical events, shopping, putting on makeup, practicing magic, worrying about pregnancy—all, however, through male eyes.Kelly Olson, "The Appearance of the Young Roman Girl," in Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 139. The published letters of Cicero, for instance, reveal informally how the self-proclaimed great man interacted on the domestic front with his wife Terentia and daughter Tullia, as his speeches demonstrate through disparagement the various ways Roman women could enjoy a free-spirited sexual and social life.In reference to his character assassination of the notorious Clodia; see Pro Caelio.
The one major public role reserved solely for women was in the sphere of religion: the priestly office of the Vestals. Forbidden from marriage or sex for a period of thirty years, the Vestals devoted themselves to the study and correct observance of rituals which were deemed necessary for the security and survival of Rome but which could not be performed by the male colleges of priests.For an extensive modern consideration of the Vestals, see Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (Routledge, 1998).
Childhood and education
Childhood and upbringing in ancient Rome were determined by social status. Roman children played a number of games, and their toys are known from archaeology and literary sources. Animal figures were popular, and some children kept live animals and birds as pets.Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 129–130. In Roman art girls are shown playing many of the same games as boys, such as ball, hoop-rolling, and knucklebones. Dolls are sometimes found in the tombs of those who died before adulthood. The figures are typically tall, with jointed limbs, and made of materials such as wood, terracotta, and especially bone and ivory. Girls coming of age dedicated their dolls to Diana, the goddess most concerned with girlhood, or to Venus when they were preparing for marriage.Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 128, citing Persius 2.70 and the related scholion, and p. 48 on Diana. Rome lacked the elaborate puberty rites for girls that were practiced in ancient Greece (p. 145). Noble girls were known to marry as young as 12 years of age,Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family in Italy" (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 21. whereas females in the lower classes were more likely to marry slightly further into their teenage years. (Boys, however, had to be at least 14.)Judith P. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton University Press, 1984), 142.Lauren, Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity" (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 3–4. An example of the marriage age of noble females can be seen with Cicero's lifelong friend Atticus, who married his daughter Caecilia Attica to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa when she was 14.
Girls were expected to safeguard their chastity, modesty, and reputation, in preparation for eventual marriage.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 16. The light regulation of marriage by the law with regards to minimum age (12) and consent to marriage was designed to leave families, primarily fathers, with much freedom to propel girls into marriage whenever and with whomever they saw fit. Marriage facilitated a partnership between the father and prospective husbands, and enabled the formation of a mutually beneficial alliance with both political and economic incentives at heart.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 106–107. The girls would leave their own families and join their husbands. The social regime, geared towards early marriage and implemented through children's education and upbringing, was particularly restrictive for girls. Some, perhaps many, girls went to a public primary school; however, there is some evidence to suggest that girls’ education was limited to this elementary school level. It has been inferred that individual school tutoring of girls at home was led by concerns about threats to girls’ modesty in coeducational classrooms.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 18. Ovid and Martial imply that boys and girls were educated either together or similarly, and Livy takes it for granted that the daughter of a centurion would be in school.Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, pp. 197–198 Alternatively, Epictetus and other historians and philosophers suggest that the educational system was preoccupied with the development of masculine virtue, with male teenagers performing school exercises in public speaking about Roman values.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 17.
Children of both sexes learned to behave socially by attending dinner parties or other, less elitist events. Both genders participated in religious festivals; for example, at the Secular Games of 17 BC, the Carmen Saeculare was sung by a choir of girls and boys.Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 198. Children were made into virtuous adults through scholastic means, with curriculum, language, literature, and philosophy teaching moral precepts. Children of the elite were taught Greek as well as Latin from an early age.Janine Assa, The Great Roman Ladies (New York, 1960), p. 50. Among the upper classes, women seem to have been well-educated, some highly so, and were sometimes praised by the male historians for their learning and cultivation.Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family," in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 30, 40–41. Some women became socially prominent, and even relatively independent.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 2. Cornelia Metella, the young wife of Pompey the Great at the time of his death, was distinguished for her musicianship and her knowledge of geometry, literature, and philosophy.Plutarch, Life of Pompey 55 LacusCurtius edition. This degree of learning indicates formal preparation; however, among the lower classes education was limited and strongly geared towards the course of marriage, and performing the tasks of the female within the household.Sandra R. Joshel, Sheila Murnaghan, "Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture" (Routledge; New edition 2001), p. 86. Elite families poured money into their daughters' literary and virtue training to equip them with skills that would appeal to prospective husbands. Epictetus suggests that at the age of 14 girls were considered to be on the brink of womanhood and beginning to understand the inevitability of their future role as wives. They learned modesty through explicit instruction and upbringing.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 15–16.
The lives of boys and girls began to diverge dramatically after they formally came of age,Rawson, "The Roman Family," p. 40. and memorials to women recognize their domestic qualities far more often than intellectual achievements.Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 45. The skills a Roman matron needed to run a household required training, and mothers probably passed on their knowledge to their daughters in a manner appropriate to their station in life, given the emphasis in Roman society on traditionalism.Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 197. Virginity and sexual purity were culturally valued qualities considered vital for the stability of both family and state. The rape of an unmarried girl posed a threat to her reputation and marriageability, and the penalty of death was sometimes imposed on the unchaste daughter.Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 11, 45–46. The Emperor Augustus introduced marriage legislation, the Lex Papia Poppaea, which rewarded marriage and childbearing. The legislation also imposed penalties on young persons who failed to marry and on those who committed adultery. Therefore, marriage and childbearing was made law between the ages of twenty-five and sixty for men, and twenty and fifty for women.Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Noel Lenski, Richard J. A. Talbert, "A Brief History of The Romans" (Oxford University Press; 2 edition, 2013), p. 176.
Women in the family and law
Always a Daughter