CHAPTER V.

WOMAN IN ANCIENT ROME

THE history of woman's position in ancient Rome is one of the most interesting chapters in the entire story of her development. It affords the most conspicuous illustration of the law we have formulated--that nations generally come into the light of history with their women in subjection, and that the women rebel as conscience and culture prevail over tradition. There was a special reason why the subordination of woman soon fell under discussion at Rome. The culture of Greece had culminated in the establishment of a number of philosophical schools, which speculated on moral problems with complete freedom from the restraints that always hamper such speculation in religious bodies. One of the finest of these schools of morality, the Stoic system, was adopted by cultivated Romans, and eventually by the Emperors, and thus questions of social justice received earnest attention. The position of woman (as well as that of the slave, the child, and the feeble) secured in this way a consideration to which we can only find a parallel in quite recent times. How the promising development was broken off, and women had to wait 1,500 years for a re-consideration of their claims, we shall see presently.

When the first uncertain light of history falls on the promontory of Italy, and on the vigorous nation that was building up one of the most powerful empires the world has ever seen, the women are subordinate, but not so harshly treated as at a later date. Letourneau finds a number of indications that the earlier Roman family was maternal in form (_i.e._, the children took the name of, and inherited through, the mother); but this does not imply anything like a matriarchate. Indeed, a curious marriage-rite that long survived at Rome, in which the husband parted the bride's hair with the point of a spear, and the story of the rape of the Sabines, suggest an early practice of capturing wives--a practice that leads naturally to subordination.

However that may be, when the Romans come at length within our clear knowledge, the woman is in a position of great subordination. The state-organisation is slight, and the father rules his house with a terrible despotism. From the absolute control of a father a young woman passes to the almost absolute control of her husband. The only difference is that he cannot sell her, as he may the slave or the child, and cannot pass judgment on her except in the presence of her male relatives. It seems, however, that, as Mommsen says, a public opinion had already grown that controlled this theoretic autocracy of the husband and father. The husband could and did dismiss her at his will, while she had no right of divorce; but the woman who was reconciled to the conditions was treated with respect and affection, received guests, went to the circus with her husband, and never suffered the seclusion of her Greek cousin. She could also bear witness or plead, when the courts of justice developed. A few instances of brutal treatment are preserved in the chronicles, but these were quite exceptional.

This first phase of woman's development in historical Rome lasted until about 200 B.C. I need not dwell on the familiar and splendid types of womanhood that stand out in the chronicles before that time. It is well known that character was finely developed in the early Romans. About the beginning of the second century before Christ, at the close of the long struggle with Carthage, the second phase in the development of the women (and of the race generally) set in. It is to be remembered that the Republic was still a comparatively small power. The great age of conquest, that would carry the eagles over the known earth, was to come long afterwards, and therefore, in the case of Rome, it is sheer historical untruth to represent the power as beginning to decay when the women began to assert themselves. Two hundred years before Christ conservative Romans greeted the woman-movement with all the dismal prophecies with which many greet it in our own time. Yet it was not until three centuries later that Rome reached the height of its power.

The causes of the early agitation were varied, and can only be noted in summary here. The eastern culture that was flowing into Italian life was corroding the bases of the old standards and traditions. The native religion, with its divine model of a Roman family, was losing its influence, and disquieting new goddesses were gaining favour. In the year 204 B.C. the cult of the mysterious "mother of the gods" (Cybele) was imported, and soon the processions of its frenzied and repulsive devotees were among the familiar sights of even country villages. From Egypt came the more sober cult of Isis, another mother-goddess; and, in spite of what we later learn of assignations in the temples of Isis, it had in it something of the cold and chaste beauty of the moon which it symbolised, and won some of the finest women of Rome. From Persia came other religions, one of which (the Manichean) offered special activity to women.

On the other hand, the old ideal of the family, the very incarnation of woman's subjection, was falling into decay. Greek and Asiatic courtesans were pouring in, and Roman fathers must have their daughters educated, if a class of _hetæræ_ were not to hold the position it had done at Athens and Corinth. Women found their value, and stipulated for the retention of their dowries, if not for other property. As their wealth grew, the lawyers entered their service, and taught them how to evade the inconveniences of the law by refusing the _confarreatio_ (the most solemn form) and only entering on one of the looser forms of marriage. Divorce, which had been unknown for centuries, became frequent; and some women entered upon mock marriages, which withdrew them from a father's control without substituting that of a husband.

And, about the year 190 B.C., the new spirit of the women broke out in fiery eruption. During the war with Carthage a law had been passed (215 B.C.) forbidding the women to wear heavy golden ornaments or many-coloured robes, and restricting their use of chariots. At the close of the war (195 B.C.) the women demanded the repeal of this Oppian Law, as it had been passed to secure funds. Cato, however, who was then Consul, and others resolved to retain the law, and a struggle ensued that one could almost transfer from the forum of ancient Rome to the Parliament Square of modern London. Livy (_Ab urbe condita_, 1. xxxiv. c. i.-viii.) describes how, not only crowds of men of opposing sides invaded the Capitol, but the matrons themselves, "restrained neither by authority nor modesty nor the control of their husbands," beset all the ways that led to the Forum, and importunately demanded the votes of the legislators. Reinforced by crowds of provincial women, they kept up a noisy agitation during the debate in the Forum, and--strangest parallel of all--"dared to approach the consuls, prætors, and other magistrates," and at length forced their way into the houses of the tribunes and won them to the cause! Conservative patricians looked with alarm at this new species of "masculine women" (_androgynæ_). Cato, who led the resistance, complained that he had to bore his way with shame through a crowd of women to reach the Forum. If the men did not wish to see themselves under the heel of the women in a few years, he said--Livy gives his speech at length--let them keep their wives in order at home and forbid them to appear in public. But there were conscientious traitors to the masculine cause, as there are to-day. Lucius Valerius replied to Cato, and, intimidated by the armies of Amazons without, the senators repealed the Oppian Law. Cato had to be content, some years later, to impose a heavy tax on their property.[6]

This agitation, in the year 195 B.C., did not aim at securing direct political power, but it well illustrates the futility of anti-feminist predictions, as well as the law that feminism grows with culture. From that time onward the women of Rome continued to enlarge their liberty and their power. After a few decades the Voconian law was passed, forbidding them to receive legacies; but it was little observed, and the economic power of the wealthier women increased. That many of them used their resources only to indulge a taste for vicious or stupid luxury is merely to say that they did what some rich men did, and are doing. We have just as many instances recorded of wealthy and cultivated Roman ladies who retained all the fine character of their ancestors. Those writers who speak of good wives and good mothers as "the gold that glitters on the muck-heap," as Dr. Reich does, seem to be ignorant of the real character of some of their types.[7] That famous type of motherhood, Cornelia, daughter of Scipio and mother of the Gracchi, was one of the most learned women of her time, and was no less interested in public affairs than in Greek culture. In her later years her home was a centre of intellectual life, and her letters are highly praised by the first critic of the Roman world. The letters of Cicero refer to numbers of other Roman ladies of no less culture than character and civic interest. The patriotism of Brutus drew its strength, to no small extent, from the spirit of his mother, wife, and sister.

By the beginning of the Christian era, when the Empire had displaced the Republic, the position of woman had materially altered. The despotism of the husband was a mere barbaric memory. From Augustus they obtained full control of their dowry and protection against avaricious husbands; and from Hadrian, later, they had the right to make wills without consulting their husbands. Their accumulating property gave them a good deal of indirect influence on civic and political affairs. The philosopher Seneca acknowledged that he owed his quæstorship to his aunt, and promotion through the influence of women was quite common.

In the reign of Tiberius a senator made a spirited attack on their interference in the public administration. The wives of generals and governors, he complained, went down into the provinces with their husbands, reviewed the troops with them, and meddled with the government. The Senate ignored the complaint. Inscriptions have been found in many Roman towns that tell with gratitude of women-patrons of the municipality, women-donors of baths, arches, temples, hospitals, and other treasured institutions.

The school-system of Rome now developed to a height which has only been reached once more by education in the second half of the nineteenth century, and of which many civilised nations still fall far short. For the children of the free workers, of both sexes, there was general and free elementary instruction in the later Empire. Boys and girls sat together on the benches of the _literator_ in the open porticoes, and the girls of the more wealthy went on to the secondary schools of the _grammaticus_, as their brothers did. Many women had slave-tutors teaching them Greek letters and philosophy. The marble chambers of the rich, with their rare birds nesting in the cedar roof, their silver furniture and Greek vases, and all the treasures of Persia, did, indeed, often echo with voluptuous music, and draw their heavy curtains upon scenes such as unthinking wealth inspires in every age; but they resounded, too, with feminine discussions of Greek philosophy and poetry, and Roman politics, and they smiled on types of womanhood that preserved all the character of the old Republic, with all the interest in art and thought and life of the new Empire.

It is so commonly believed that this enlargement of the liberty and power of the Roman women led to a general degradation of character that I must linger for a moment on the point. The popular idea of an entire corruption of Rome in the first century is quite discarded by modern scholarship. The English reader will find the finest and truest picture of that maligned age in Dr. Samuel Dill's _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, in which the current exaggeration is fully refuted.[8] The popular notion rests almost entirely on the satires of Juvenal, a bohemian writer, anti-feminist and anti-aristocratic, who hung on the fringe of society to catch what dubious morsels he could of idle chatter and exaggerated scandal. It would be more reasonable to take Father Vaughan's strictures on the "smart set" as a full picture of English society than to take Juvenal's less conscientious gossip about a few wealthy women as a complete picture of Rome. A careful reader will soon see that Juvenal lashes Roman women for their culture and for innocent fads, as much as for vice. As Letourneau says: "Neither the satires of the poets nor the objurgations of moralists suffice to prove that the Roman woman was essentially inferior to her male companion." The moralist he seems to have in mind is Seneca; but Seneca expressly claimed that woman was the mental and moral equal of man, and he lived in a circle of fine, cultivated ladies. The morbidity of a few of the wealthier women--a morbidity that has a parallel in every age of luxury and change, in both sexes--does not characterise the sex; and, as to the larger class of less wealthy women, Dr. Dill adds: "In his [Juvenal's] own modest class female morality ... was probably as high as it ever was, as high as the average morality of any age" (p. 76).

I do not need to dwell, therefore, on the few known cases of slave-torture, on the one or two noble women slinking down to the reeking _insulæ_ in the Subura, and the few other extraordinary misdeeds that have puffed out the popular calumny. For the general character of the age one need only recall London under the Stuarts, or under the Georges. It was an age of great luxury (falling short, however, of the same class in modern New York) and great laxity, and the blame must be laid on the rigorous and tyrannical old idea of marriage, as well as on the familiar causes. But the idea that this condition of Roman society continued to the end of the Pagan Empire is grotesquely untrue. Before the end of the first century, under Stoic influence, the standard of character rose once more, Roman society was purged, and in the last phase of the feminist movement at Rome a general level of morality and philanthropy was reached that will bear comparison with modern times. Both the historians of the time, Tacitus and Suetonius, expressly describe the reform, and every historian knows that Rome went on to a greater height (apart from letters) than it had done before. Lecky, in particular, has done justice to the way in which the Stoic doctrine of the brotherhood of men found expression in the condemnation of slavery, the imperial abolition of most of the old abuses, the care of the aged and ailing, and a hundred works of justice and mercy.

In this remarkable fervour for social justice woman was bound to find profit. The service done to her consisted mainly in providing a sounder basis for the liberty and power which she had won, largely by the equivocal aid of the growing laxity in regard to marriage. The Stoics--philosophers, lawyers, and emperors--believed in the equality of men and women. Antoninus Pius embodied in one of his judgments the common Stoic sentiment that fidelity was equally expected of husband and wife. The great Stoic jurist, Gaius, severely criticised the older Roman law, that dealt unequally with man and woman, and "scouted the popular apology for it in the mental inferiority of the female sex," says Sir Henry Maine.[9] Dion Chrysostom called for the legal suppression of prostitution. Briefly, the Stoics, who controlled the legal and imperial courts for more than a century, completed the work of putting woman on a level of legal and social equality to man, and their world included--as the letters and writings of Plutarch, Seneca, Tacitus, and Pliny show--a large number of women of equal culture and character.

Thus Rome had completely removed the sex-disability of its women while it was still in the fulness of power, and as a direct consequence of its later moral culture. That this emancipation did not include the granting of political power can cause no surprise to those who know the history of Rome. Since the fall of the Republic the men themselves had no political power, and, therefore, the women had no sex-disability on this side to agitate against. It is true that the imperial purple was held exclusively by men, and the great administrative offices were open to men alone. Against this arrangement women may have protested; but we should hardly expect such a protest until a more advanced stage of evolution; and, in point of fact, the more ambitious women had a great deal of indirect power. Even before the fall of the Republic we find notices of what we should now call "women's clubs" (_senatus matronarum_), and when power was concentrated in an hereditary monarchy the royal women had immense influence over it. Women agitated in municipal elections, as we saw, controlled small towns in the character of municipal patrons, and influenced the choice of quæstors, prætors, and tribunes. With this large measure of influence for the wealthier women, and with the general admission of her equal mental capacity to men, it was natural for woman to cease from agitation; the mass of the women, who had not these opportunities, were in no worse plight, politically, than their husbands. Until government by popular representatives was once more adopted or demanded we can hardly look for a further agitation. But the Roman Empire was now beginning to decay, and the cause of woman was lost in the general catastrophe.

In speaking of decay as setting in immediately after the completion of woman's emancipation I need hardly recall my protest against connecting the two. The decay of the Roman Empire was due to causes that are plainly set forth by modern historians like Boissier and Schultze, and that have nothing whatever to do with the emancipation of woman. No serious historian ever dreamed of such a notion until the modern feminist movement arose. In point of fact, the emancipation of woman was completed long before Rome passed the height of its power. What the Stoics did was rather to find a healthy moral basis for the liberty that had already been won. I cannot go into the complex causes of the decay of the Empire in Europe, but will only say that it is traced to political, economic, and physical degeneration, with which the position of woman is absolutely unconnected. To the very end Roman women retained their culture, character, and influence; and the last glimpses we get (in Symmachus and Macrobius) of Pagan Rome, before the Goths invade it, leave with us a memory of a sober, cultivated, humane society, unconscious that the wheels of fate are making so appalling a revolution.

Thus, as I said in the beginning, the woman-movement of that older empire broke up only because its civilisation was broken. Rome had carried the cause of woman's emancipation to a great height, and, had a fresh civilisation succeeded at once to the heritage, as Greece succeeded Rome, the story would have been completed long ago. Unhappily, Roman civilisation was replaced by a fresh barbarism, and Europe fell with terrible rapidity into the swamp of the Middle Ages. Women sank back all over Europe into a state of such subordination that fourteen hundred years after the fall of Rome there was not a civilisation in the world that would grant her the least semblance of that legal and mental equality with man which she had laboriously won nearly 2,000 years before. The cause of woman passed into an abyss, from which it is only now emerging afresh. How that came about, and why it lingered so long in the abyss, we have now to see.