Life, then, was bound to be not over-agreeable in Cæsar’s time for an affectionate, delicate, virtuous woman who desired the quiet joys of family life. When we contemplate from afar the historical grandeur and the glory of ancient Rome, we ought not to forget the multitude of hapless women which Rome was forced to sacrifice—a precious holocaust indeed—to her fortune and power. How many women’s broken hearts, how many women’s shattered lives went to make up the foundations of Roman grandeur! Nevertheless, even the greatest evils are never without some small admixture of good; and that sorrowful plight of woman in ancient times, especially of the Roman woman, was offset by one advantage of which liberty has robbed the woman of to-day. That is, that in ancient times, a woman, whether fair or plain, clever or foolish, attractive or insipid, was certain to be married, and that too while she was still young. The husband could not choose her; but she was sure of finding him, and that without undue delay.
In fact, nowhere in the ancient world do we find any striking traces of a feminine celibacy like that which existed later under the influence of Christianity in the convents, or like that which is to-day again coming into prominence for social and economic reasons, without any religious impress or need of monastic vows, especially in the great industrial countries. It seems that women of the upper and middle classes, if they were not positively deformed and physically unsuited for matrimony, all married. Furthermore, inasmuch as marriages, especially among the upper classes, were arranged from political and social motives, no account was taken of the beauty of the bride, but of her social position, her family, and so on. Historians always tell us how many wives the numerous prominent figures in Roman history married, and to what families they belonged. But it is rare for them to tell us whether they were beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, pleasing or unpleasing; these details seemed to them of but trifling importance. One of the few exceptions to this rule is Livia, the last wife of Augustus. All the writers vie in celebrating her rare beauty (to which the statues also bear witness), her wisdom, intelligence, and virtue. But Livia seems really to have been a miracle; for it is a fact that, having married Augustus in her earliest youth, she succeeded in living with him all her life.
Fifteen or sixteen years was considered the suitable age for a bride. Sometimes girls were married when they were barely fourteen, while nowadays it is rare for a girl to marry before she is twenty, and the majority marry between the ages of twenty and thirty. Furthermore, in many states of the ancient world the legal age for matrimony, both for the woman and the man, was much lower than it is to-day in European and American legal codes. This is not surprising. In all times and in all places in which matrimony is considered not as a personal matter of sentiment, but as a social act which must be regulated and directed by the parents, the object is to marry off the young people as quickly as possible. Often they are actually betrothed when they are still children, and share each other’s games of running and jumping. This was a fairly common practice in ancient Rome amongst the nobility, as it is a thriving custom in the China of to-day. Nor is it difficult to understand the reason for this procedure, which, considered by itself, seems to us extravagant and senseless. Love in all times and in all places is a most intractable passion. It is, therefore, more easy in such matters, for the elders to impose their wills and cold-blooded arrangements, on girls of fourteen or fifteen and boys of seventeen or eighteen, than on women or men of twenty-five. Naturally such precocious marriages, contracted between young people who had not yet had a taste of the world, were not free from dangers and serious inconveniences. But these dangers and inconveniences appeared to contemporary eyes less great than those which would have arisen, if the young had been left to follow the dictates of their own feelings.
In conclusion, another advantage which the ancient marriage, with all its many hardships and its want of sympathy, assured to the woman was what one might call the legal protection of virtue. Nowhere was this protection greater and stronger than in ancient Rome. In Rome, the legitimacy of a marriage did not depend, as it does now in Europe and America, on the fulfilment of certain formalities before a priest or a magistrate, but on the moral situation of the woman. An ingenua et honesta woman, to use the expression then current, meaning a free-born woman of irreproachable habits, could live with a man only in the capacity of his legitimate wife. No formality in the presence of any magistrate was required. The fact of living with a man and being ingenua et honesta sufficed to assure to a woman and her own children all the rights appertaining to a wife and to legitimate offspring. On the other hand, a woman who had lived a dissolute life, had engaged in certain employments considered, and justly considered, disgraceful for a woman, or who had been convicted of adultery, could never become a legitimate wife or enjoy the privileges and rights of a legitimate wife. There was no ceremony before a priest or magistrate which could make a legitimate wife of her. She was by law a concubina, and in that capacity for a long time had no rights. Only in the course of time could she hope to get the rights, much restricted and of little importance as they were, which the law gradually conceded to the concubina.
To transport this ancient conception of matrimony into modern society would doubtless not be possible, because it contradicts the great democratic principle of the equality of all before the law, on which our social organisation rests. But considered by itself this ancient conception of matrimony is without a doubt more lofty and more noble, and in particular more favourable to the woman, than the modern one. For it did not reduce the status of legitimate wife to what is practically a formality, but made it the exclusive privilege of the virtuous woman, and therefore assured the virtuous woman of a kind of privileged legal position, protecting her effectively against the intrigues and seductions of the attractive and gay women who, in the modern régime, are usually the more dangerous to the peace and happiness of the virtuous women, the less austere are their habits. In ancient Rome, the law guaranteed the virtuous woman that at least no one of these women should be able to rob her of the post of honour which she occupied in the family.
The comparison of the ancient marriage with the modern marriage once more proves to us, then, how complex are human affairs, and how difficult it is to pass an absolute and definitive judgment upon them. Certainly, at first sight, the condition of the woman in the ancient family seems to us a horrible one, resembling that of a slave. We wonder how nations that had risen to a lofty level of social, intellectual, and moral development could have tolerated it. But when we consider the matter more attentively, we find that even this condition, wretched though it was in certain respects, was not without certain advantages, which may perhaps explain to us why women put up with it for so many centuries. The liberty which the woman of the present day enjoys has countless advantages; but it has made matrimony for her a struggle, in which, if some triumph, others are worsted, and those who triumph are not always the most virtuous and the most wise. Also, in this order of things, liberty is an excellent thing, especially for the fortunate and the brave; but the fortunate and the brave, where marriages and love are concerned, are not always those who possess the qualities which conduce most effectively to the progress of the world and the improvement of the human species. Modern liberty has set a high price on beauty and intelligence in woman, which is all to the good; but it has also made coquetry, frivolity, and vapidity into qualities which are useful for the conquest of man, who is not always a reasonable being and is even less reasonable than usual when he is in love—which is not all to the good. For there is no doubt that between twenty and thirty years of age a man is much more sensitive to the attractions of a frivolous and seductive girl than to those of a serious and sensible woman.
All human things, then, have their advantages and their disadvantages, and that perhaps is why the world never tires of its experiments in diverse directions and on every topic. Absolute perfection is unattainable—a fact which should make us careful not to boast too loudly of the times in which we live, nor to be too ready to disparage what preceding generations have done.
IV
THE LESSON OF THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
“L’histoire est un recommencement perpétuel,” a French writer has said. If the forms in which history manifests itself are infinitely various, the forces which inspire it are always the same, and are everywhere at work, on a large scale or on a small, openly or secretly. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the decadence of the Roman Empire is being repeated in our time in the modern world.