There was a further extension of the conubium when Rome, in the middle of the fourth century before Christ, admitted to its citizenship some of the Italian, especially Latin, towns which it had subdued. The bestowal of the citizenship on the libertini, or freedmen, still further extended the conubium. In 89 B.C. the Italians received the conubium by the Lex Julia and Plautia. During the later days of the Republic, and in the time of the Empire, the citizenship was conferred on men in various parts of the world, and especially on various towns in the provinces. Soldiers also, who had served for a certain time, and had allied themselves to foreign women, had these alliances converted into legitimate marriages. In fact, the right of intermarriage had become of much less value. In early days the privileges of patricians were great, and it was worth while to take care that these should be secured only to genuine patrician offspring, especially as only genuine patrician offspring could perform due sacrifice and worship to the gods of the family and the State. Even in the days from the Punic wars to the end of the Republic, Roman citizenship was at once valuable and honourable; for the Roman citizen paid no taxes, and in an indirect way might share in the plunder of the world, and he enjoyed peculiar advantages in the eye of the law. But these advantages vanished with the advance of the Empire, which reduced all to a dead level of subjection, and at length, in 212 A.D., one of the most hated of tyrants, Caracalla, conferred the citizenship on all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and with it the conubium. After this, any man might marry any woman, and the factitious distinctions which had ruled the ancient world vanished for ever. The world owes no gratitude to Caracalla for this grand consummation; for his only motive in conferring the citizenship on all was that all might be compelled to pay taxes, and that aliens might not escape, as some of them had hitherto done.
The outline of the history of what we may call the external emancipation of woman now given is, we have no doubt, substantially correct and based on trustworthy sources; but when we come to deal with the moral progress of women, and their position in the midst of Roman society, great difficulties meet us, which attach to all early Roman history.
Rome, according to the usual account, was founded in 753 B.C. There is no trace of any regular literature between that date and 390 B.C., when the city was burned to the ground. The Romans, no doubt, knew the art of writing at an early period; but any records kept by them were of the most meagre kind, and nearly all of them must have perished in the conflagration of 390. One hundred and seventy years have to pass before regular histories of Rome began to be written, and nearly all the literature and monuments during these 170 years have disappeared. We are thus without authentic documents for the minute history of the Roman people for 500 years of their existence. During this period the position of women underwent important changes; but, owing to this absence of documents, we are unable to explain these changes. We have, however, a very definite tradition to start with. This tradition presents itself everywhere in the works of Roman poets and historians, and pervades the ideas even of the late jurists, and we may feel confident that it is substantially correct. This tradition is to the effect that the position of the Roman matron was quite different from that of the Greek matron in the time of Pericles. The Roman matron was mistress in her own household. As the husband took charge of all external transactions, so the wife was supreme in household arrangements. The marriage was a community in all affairs, and within the home the utmost diligence, reverence, and harmony prevailed. The wife sat in the atrium, or principal hall, dispensing the wool to the maidservants, and herself making the garments of her husband and family. She did not cook or do what was regarded as menial work. She dined with her husband, sitting while he reclined, when they were alone. She received the friends of her husband, and dined with them also. She walked in and out with great freedom, and she nursed and brought up her own children.
This is a bright and beautiful picture, and some of the traits remained true to the end of Roman history. Many stories are told of the affection of husband for wife, wife for husband, children for parents, and parents for children. Thus we are informed of the father of the Gracchi, that he caught a couple of snakes in his bed, and, on consulting the haruspices, or diviners, he was told that he must not kill or let go both: that if he killed the male, he himself (Tiberius) would die; if he killed the female, his wife Cornelia would die. Tiberius did not hesitate in his choice. He loved Cornelia. He was elderly, she was young. He therefore killed the male snake, and a short time after this occurrence he died. The story is no doubt true, as the authority for it was his famous son Caius.[70]
Nothing could be more striking than the affection of Cicero for his daughter. He writes to her in the most endearing terms, cared for her every want, and was inconsolable for her loss when death carried her away. There are numerous instances in which wives resolved to share the ill-fortune of their husbands to endure calamity along with them, and to die rather than survive them.
This ideal remained with Roman men till the end of the Empire. It is the standard by which Juvenal metes out his criticism on the women of his own day, and many of the ill-natured judgments uttered against the sex are based on the old-fashioned conception of a Roman matron’s duties.
CHAPTER II.
THE OTHER SIDE.
But there is quite another side to this picture. In the early stages of Roman history there is reason to believe that the Roman wife was completely under the control of her husband. The Roman idea of a family made the father a despot, with power of life and death over his children, who could do nothing without his consent. This was the case in regard to male children, even after they had reached a considerable age. Women, according to the opinion of the early Romans, were always children. They required protection and guidance during their whole life, and could never be freed from despotic control. Accordingly, when a Roman girl married, she had to choose whether she would remain under the control of her father, or pass into the control or—as it was called—into the hands of her husband. It is likely that in the early ages of the city she always passed from the power of her father into the hands of her husband, and the position she occupied was that of daughter to her husband. She thus became entirely subject to him, and was at his mercy. Roman history supplies many instances of the despotism which husbands exercised over their wives. The slightest indiscretion was sometimes punished by death, while men might do what they liked without let or hindrance. “If you were to catch your wife,” was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, “in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger, and indeed she has no right.” Wives were prohibited from tasting wine at the risk of the severest penalties. The conduct of Egnatius was praised who, surprising his wife in the act of sipping the forbidden liquid, beat her to death.[71] The same sternness appears in the reasons which induced some of the Romans to dismiss their wives. Sulpicius Gallus dismissed his because she appeared in the streets without a veil; Antistius Vetus dismissed his because he saw her speaking secretly to a freedwoman in public; and P. Sempronius Sophus sent his away because she had ventured to go to the public games without informing him of her movements.[72]
I think that we may see that the Roman matrons did not like this arbitrary treatment, and that they protested against the assumption that they were beings quite different from their husbands, and entitled to no rights and privileges as against them. And the interesting feature in the history of the Roman matron is the gradual emancipation which she effected for herself from these fetters of Roman tradition and usage. Unfortunately, we are not able, as I have explained, to trace fully the processes of this emancipation, but we can indicate some influences which worked in this direction.