Western Civilization

doctors warned that early pregnancies could be dan-

gerous for young girls, early marriages persisted due

to the desire to benefit from dowries as soon as possi-

ble and the reality of early mortality. A good example

is Tullia, Cicero’s beloved daughter. She was married

at sixteen, widowed at twenty-two, remarried one year

later, divorced at twenty-eight, remarried at twenty-

nine, and divorced at thirty-three. She died at

thirty-four, not a particularly young age for females in

Roman society.

The Evolution of Roman Law

One of Rome’s chief gifts to the Mediterranean world

of its day and to succeeding generations was its devel-

opment of law. The Twelve Tables of 450B.C.E. were

Cato the Elder on Women

During the Second Punic War, the Romans enacted the

Oppian Law, which limited the amount of gold women

could possess and restricted their dress and use of

carriages. In 195B.C.E., an attempt was made to repeal

the law, and women demonstrated in the streets on

behalf of the effort. According to the Roman historian

Livy, the conservative Roman official Cato the Elder

spoke against repeal and against the women favoring it.

Although the words are probably not Cato’s own, they

do reflect a traditional male Roman attitude toward

women.

Livy,The History of Rome

“If each of us, citizens, had determined to assert his

rights and dignity as a husband with respect to his own

spouse, we should have less trouble with the sex as a

whole; as it is, our liberty, destroyed at home by female

violence, even here in the Forum is crushed and

trodden underfoot, and because we have not kept them

individually under control, we dread them

collectively.... But from no class is there not the

greatest danger if you permit them meetings and

gatherings and secret consultations....

“Our ancestors permitted no woman to conduct

even personal business without a guardian to intervene

in her behalf; they wished them to be under the

control of fathers, brothers, husbands; we (Heaven

help us!) allow them now even to interfere in public

affairs, yes, and to visit the Forum and our informal

and formal sessions. What else are they doing now on

the streets and at the corners except urging the bill of

the tribunes and voting for the repeal of the law? Give

loose rein to their uncontrollable nature and to this

untamed creature and expect that they will themselves

set bounds to their license; unless you act, this is the

least of the things enjoined upon women by custom or

law and to which they submit with a feeling of

injustice. It is complete liberty or rather, if we wish to

speak the truth, complete license that they desire.

“If they win in this, what will they not attempt?

Review all the laws with which your forefathers

restrained their license and made them subject to their

husbands; even with all these bonds you can scarcely

control them. What of this? If you suffer them to seize

these bonds one by one and wrench themselves free

and finally to be placed on a parity with their

husbands, do you think you will be able to endure

them? The moment they begin to be your equals, they

will be your superiors....

“Now they publicly address other women’s

husbands, and, what is more serious, they beg for law

and votes, and from various men they get what they

ask. In matters affecting yourself, your property, your

children, you, Sir, can be importuned; once the law has

ceased to set a limit to your wife’s expenditures you

will never set it yourself. Do not think, citizens, that

the situation which existed before the law was passed

will ever return.”

Q What particular actions of the women protesting

this law angered Cato? What more general

concerns did he have about Roman women? What

did he believe was women’s ultimate goal in regard

to men?

Source: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Livy: History of Rome, Book 34, Loeb Classical Library Vol. II–V, trans. by B. O. Foster,

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Copyrightª1935 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows

of Harvard College.

108 Chapter 5The Roman Republic

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