II
We have seen a little of what these women were and what they did. What they suffered can be better gathered from a glance at their position and the share they had in the liberties they had done so much to foster and save. Of freedom the Roman woman of earlier times had none at all, though she was not secluded like her Athenian sisters, and her place in the family was a better one. Her character was formed, like that of our Puritan mothers, in times of toil and danger, when she worked side by side with men for a common end, and, in both, their strength of purpose and spirit of heroic sacrifice lasted long after the hard conditions of primitive life had passed. Besides, the natural talent for administration which shone through all her limitations was to a certain degree recognized by her husband, and she was often his counselor, as well as the instructor of his children, even beyond the seven years prescribed. But all this did not suffice to give her any liberty of thought or action, and she was to all intents and purposes a slave, subject to the caprices of a master who might choose to be kind, though, in case he did not, she had no protection either in law or custom; and we all know how soon the consciousness of absolute power warps the sensibilities of even the gentlest. “Created to please and obey,” says Gibbon, “she was never supposed to have reached the age of reason and experience.” She was under guardianship all her life, first of her father, then of her husband, and, at his death, of her nearest male relative. For centuries she had no right to her own property, no control of her own person, no choice in marriage, no recourse against cruelty and oppression. “The husband has absolute power over the wife,” said the stern old Cato; “it is for him to condemn and punish her for any shameful act, such as taking wine or violating the moral law.” To show what was possible in the way of surveillance, we are told that he was in the habit of kissing her, when he came home, to satisfy himself that she had not been drinking. One man who found his wife sipping wine beat her to death; another dismissed his weaker half because she was seen on the street without a veil; and a daring woman was sent away because she went to the circus without leave. Any man could spend his wife’s money, beat her, sell her, give her to some one else when he was tired of her, even put her to death, “acting as accuser, judge, jury, and executioner.” In the last case it was better to call her friends into council, perhaps even necessary, if they were powerful enough to ask for an explanation; but “a man can do as he likes with his own” was sufficient to cover any injustice or any crime. Even in the last days of the Republic, when the laws were greatly modified, the younger Cato, a man noted for his stoical virtues, gave his wife to his friend Hortensius, and after his death took her back—with a dowry added. What she thought of the matter signified little. It does not appear that she was even consulted. The family was the unit, and the man was the family.
It is fair to say that it was not women alone who suffered from this peculiar phase of Roman society, as men had little more freedom so long as their fathers lived; but it fell much more severely on those who were, in the nature of things, more helpless. The best they could hope for was a change of masters, which might be for the worse; and who was to protect them from their irresponsible protectors, even with all the safeguards supposed to be provided by law? For this evidently put them where Terence did the philosophers, along with horses and hunting-dogs, that were owned but not necessarily considered.
It is said, in praise of the morals of Rome during its first centuries, that there was not a divorce for five hundred years. The exact nature of this merit is seen more clearly when we find that a woman could not apply for a divorce, or expect a redress of any wrong, whatever might befall her; while a man simply sent away his wife, if she did not please him, without any formalities, and with slight, if any, penalties. This did not release her from perpetual servitude, though he was free to follow his inclinations, amenable to no law and no obligation. It is true, however, that Roman matrons prided themselves on their dignity. A certain respect was exacted for them, and familiarity in their presence was a punishable offense. They took every occasion also to show appreciation of their defenders. They mourned a year for Brutus, who died in avenging Lucretia’s honor, and did the same later for his upright colleague.
Many years afterward there was a temple of patrician chastity in which women assembled for sacred rites, but they found as many causes for contention as some of our societies do to-day. One noble matron lost caste by marrying a plebeian, and was excluded. She protested in vain. Her birth, her spotless fame, her devotion to her husband, counted for nothing so long as that husband did not belong to the elect. There was no lack of spirited words, but the matter did not end here. This slighted Virginia started another association on her own ground, set apart a chapel in her house, and erected an altar to plebeian chastity. The standards were to be much higher. She called together the plebeian ladies, and proposed that they emulate one another in virtue, as men did in valor. No woman of doubtful honor or twice married was admitted. Unfortunately, this organization in time opened its doors too wide, and shared the fate of many others.
On another occasion Quinta Claudia, one of the leading matrons of Rome, played so conspicuous a part that she won immortality and a statue of brass. She was at the head of a delegation appointed to meet the Idæan Mother, who was expected at Terracina, and whose coming was of great importance, as various strange happenings showed conclusively that Juno was angry and needed propitiation. It was decided that the most virtuous man in the State should accompany the matrons, but it was only after much tribulation that the Senate found one fit to be intrusted with the office, and this was a young Scipio. Unfortunately, the vessel containing the image went aground, and the augurs declared that only a woman of spotless character could dislodge it. Quinta Claudia was equal to the occasion. She seized the oar, with a prayer to Cybele; the boat moved from its place as if by magic, and was safely carried to its destination. The lady’s fair fame, which had been a little clouded, was forever established by a direct interposition of the gods. The matrons acquitted themselves with honor and, it is to be hoped, to the satisfaction of the goddess, who was duly installed in her temple.
All this goes to prove that the women of twenty centuries ago often combined in the interest of religion and morals, and were quite capable of managing public as well as private affairs; also that great value was attached to the austere virtues. The wise Cato is said to have erased the name of a Roman from the list of senators because he kissed his wife in the presence of his daughters—a worse penalty than the old Blue Laws imposed on the man who kissed his wife on Sunday. It is a pity that this crabbed censor, of many theoretical virtues and a few practical ones set in thorns, failed to appreciate the dignity and decorum of the Roman matron. It was this same rigid Cato who, in spite of the fact that he “preferred a good husband to a great senator,” was so inconsistently shocked that a Roman lady should presume to be a companion to her noble lord. He looked upon a wife as a necessary evil, and declared that “the lives of men would be less godless if they were quit of women.”
There was no question of love or inclination in arranging a Roman marriage. It was simply a contract between citizens, a State affair intended solely to perpetuate the race in its purity, and to preserve family and religious traditions. In its best form it was for centuries restricted to patricians, who alone were privileged to take the mystic bread together. This constituted a religious marriage, and only this could give their children pure descent or admission to the highest functions of the State. There were two lower grades of civil marriage, but each gave a man supreme control of his wife, without the dignity of consecration. Whatever cruelty and suffering might result from this one-sided relation,—and the possibilities were enormous,—a woman was expected to love the husband chosen by her friends, for himself alone, and a bridegroom’s presents were limited by custom, so that she might not be tempted to love him for what he could give her. She must go out to meet him, submit patiently to any indignities he might offer, and mourn him in due form when he died. Her death he was not required to mourn at all. His infidelities she must never see, as any complaint was likely to meet with a dismissal, and she knew that even her father would say it served her right for interfering in any way with a man’s privilege of doing as he liked.
That a woman ever did love her husband under such conditions proves that her heart was as tender as her capacity for self-sacrifice was great; also that men were by no means as wicked or tyrannical as they had the power to be. We know that liberty is not always insured by an edict, nor does cruelty or injustice invariably follow the lack of a decree against it. There are many notable instances of the devotion of Roman women and the affection of Roman men; indeed, it is quite certain that there was a great deal of happy domestic life. Men naturally accepted the traditions of a society into which they had been born, and women did not question them unless their burdens became intolerable, and even these they considered a part of their destiny, as good women had done before them—and have done since. But power is a dangerous gift for the best of us, and without some strong safeguard, moral or legal, brute force inevitably asserts itself over helplessness. In modern times a sentiment grown into a tradition has done much toward tempering the condition of women even under arbitrary rule, though their own increased intelligence has done more. Sentiment, however, was not a quality of the average Roman character. Men were masterful and passionate, eager of power and impatient of contradiction. To offset this, they often had a strong family feeling and a certain sense of justice, besides a natural love of peace in the home; but this did not suffice to curb the violence and cruelty of the wicked, nor to render the position of the high-spirited wife a possible one. The stuff out of which Lucretias and Cornelias are made is not the stuff to bear habitual oppression silently, beyond a certain point.
It was doubtless this oppression that was responsible for a startling epidemic of husband-poisoning in the fourth century before Christ. The women who prepared the drugs were betrayed by a maid, and one hundred and seventy matrons—some of them patricians—were found guilty. The leaders were forced to take their own poisons, and died with the calmness of Stoics. Two hundred years afterward there was another epidemic of the same sort, and many eminent men paid the penalty of their cruelties with their lives. This mode of redressing wrongs became too common to be passed to the account of individual crime. It was the protest of helpless ignorance that had found no other weapon.
About this time, however, the Roman matrons took a more civilized and rational method of asserting their rights. It was an innovation to claim any, but they were too proud to accept the hopeless vassalage of the Athenian woman. Indignant at the inferiority of their condition, without recourse or refuge against cruelty and injustice, hampered by needless and petty restrictions, they rebelled at last.