We are to consider in this chapter the effect of the marriage arrangements of Rome on the happiness, character, and influence of the Roman women. It is needless to say that it is impossible to reach incontestable conclusions on such a subject. Our evidence cannot but be fragmentary and one-sided, whatever be the nation or period whose happiness or morals we choose for the subject of our investigations. Even in our own day it would be easy, from the reports of the divorce and police courts and newspaper paragraphs, to draw together such materials as might lead one to assert that women were treated with the greatest cruelty, and that the age was one of the most licentious. But the evidence in the case of the Romans is peculiarly fragmentary. Only this has to be said for it: that it is not selected, that the facts which bear on the subject have been recorded for other reasons, and that therefore they may be expected to give a fair average picture of the state of matters into which we are inquiring.

It is necessary to deal at the outset with a prejudice which has influenced the views of many modern writers. It is supposed that Christianity must have appeared at a time when the ancient world was falling to pieces; when, therefore, morals were particularly low, society was in an utterly corrupt condition, and licentiousness universally prevailed. There is no sure foundation for this opinion. There is no picture of the last days of the Republic or the first years of the Empire that is so black as that painted by Ammianus Marcellinus[83] of his own times. And the licentiousness of Pagan Rome is nothing to the licentiousness of Christian Africa, Rome, and Gaul,[84] if we can put any reliance on the description of Salvian. I may adduce one instance of the effects of this prejudice. Drumann, in his laborious work of six volumes, has collected all the biographical facts that records have sent down to us in connexion with the last period of the Republic. In his index to this book he has a very short list of passages that refer to the virtues of women, and a very long one referring to their degeneracy. We turn to the first of these latter passages, and what do we find? Drumann[85] is describing the proscriptions carried out by the triumvirs, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, and he narrates how the Roman trembled before his own wife, children, slaves, and freedmen, and adduces instances in which Romans were betrayed by their relatives or slaves. He mentions three instances of the treachery of wives, and we may be sure that these were all the instances with which the records of the period furnished him, for it is not likely that any one has escaped his most diligent search. But he allows that another side of human nature was brought to light, and, in exhibiting it to his readers, he quotes eight instances in which wives saved their husbands at the risk of their lives or followed them into exile. It would be rash to draw an inference from these facts; but, if inference is to be drawn, it is that, even in the midst of wild disorders in the State and a general reign of terror in which each one feared for his life, wives were far more frequently true to their husbands and ready to share every peril with them, and that, therefore, we have really no proof of degeneracy, but, on the contrary, of strong affection between husband and wife.

In considering the effect of the marriage customs of the Romans we think naturally first of the fact that consent was the essence of a Roman marriage. No woman could be compelled to marry. It is true that women very frequently married when they were exceedingly young, often when they were only fourteen or fifteen years old, and that we must suppose that in these cases the influence of the fathers was predominant. But even in these cases the girl had to give her consent, and consent remained the essence of the obligation to a married life. Whenever there arose a feeling of bondage, the woman as well as the man could arrange for a dissolution of the connexion. And the woman had no pecuniary difficulties in the way. Every father provided for the support of his daughters for life by the dowries which he bestowed on them; and, therefore, no woman was compelled to put up with a faithless and cruel husband because she was entirely dependent on him for her subsistence. The complaints which we hear of Roman marriages are not from the female, but the male side. The women were too independent. A Roman marries a Roman woman who has ample means of her own. He finds that the old times are gone, and he cannot now lay hold of her money or property without her consent. He must now humour her if he is to enjoy her wealth, and the effort to gain her over in this way is held up as degrading and humiliating to a man, and it is represented that it is better for a man to be without a wife than to be subject to all the imperious whims of a wealthy woman.

Then, again, there was no shame attached to a dissolution of marriage. Marriage was a contract. Religious ceremonies were connected with it, but they did not constitute the marriage, and they were not essential to it. No sacredness invested the idea of marriage. It was an agreement between two parties, and, whenever this agreement began to gall the one or the other, there was no reason why the agreement should not come to an end. The strength of the Roman feeling on this point is seen in the attitude towards breach of promise. In Latium actions for breach of promise were common, as we are told by Servius Sulpicius in his book ‘De Dotibus,’ quoted by Gellius (iv. 4), and they continued till the citizenship of Rome was conferred on the Latins by the Lex Julia. But the Romans never seem to have allowed them. Sometimes the sponsalia or betrothal, though a private act, was celebrated with great pomp; but the Romans thought that “it was dishonourable that marriages should be held together by the bond of a penalty, whether future or already contracted,”[86] and “if,” says Juvenal, “you are not going to love the woman who has been by a legal agreement betrothed and united to you, there seems to be no reason why you should marry her.”[87]

Appeal is often made in this connexion to the frequency of divorce. In early days the Romans did not divorce their wives, and this fact is exhibited as a proof of the virtue of early times and the degeneracy of the later period. The first Roman divorce is said to have occurred about the year 231 B.C., when Spurius Carvilius dismissed his wife because she bore him no children. One writer represents Spurius as fond of his wife, but every citizen had to answer the Censor’s question “Have you a wife for the purpose of procuring children?” Spurius’s wife was by nature incapable of bearing children, and he therefore felt conscientious scruples in answering the Censor’s question in the affirmative, as he was bound to do, and so dismissed his wife, according to the advice of the family council. It is not likely that this was the first divorce. At least, it is recorded that the Censors of 307 B.C. removed L. Annius from the Senate because he had divorced his wife without consulting the family council, and there is no reason to doubt the truth of the statement. But it is probable that divorces came into vogue about the middle of the third century before the Christian era. The Roman Catholic lady, Mlle. Bader,[88] who has lauded the virtue of the Romans because no divorces took place before this time has suggested an explanation of the fact. “The Roman husbands,” she says, “did not divorce their wives; they killed them.” As long as the Roman wives were under the control or in the hands of the husband, the husband unquestionably could kill his wife under certain restrictions; but when this state of matters ceased, then the obvious course was, unless the wife committed great crimes, and thereby incurred severe punishment, to dissolve the marriage quietly. And it seems to us that women would prefer divorce to death, and that, instead of a degeneracy, the altered state of matters implies a softening of manners and an advance in civilization.[89]

It cannot be denied that divorces became frequent after women attained freedom, but much exaggeration prevails in regard to this matter. It is only about the men and women who occupied a prominent position in society that we get information, and their political interests often led to marriages and divorces. To form an estimate of general society from these would be as erroneous as to form an estimate of English and French society from Henry VIII. and the Napoleonic family. Marquardt[90] notes the cases of frequent marriages. “Ovid,” he says, “and the younger Pliny married three times, Cæsar and Antony four times, Sulla and Pompey five times, Cicero’s daughter Tullia three times.” It is needless to say that there is nothing wonderful in this. Many men and women in modern times marry three times, and there are some who have married four and five times, and one Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland had seven wives.[91] Yet these cases have not been deemed indicative of an exceptional state of low morality. The satirists and moralists are fond of employing exaggerated language in regard to women in this connexion. Juvenal talks of a woman having eight husbands in five years, and Martial of a woman being married to her tenth husband. Seneca describes some noble women as reckoning their years, not by the names of the Consuls, but by the names of their husbands. And it is possible that a few women may have become notorious in this way. The Augustan marriage laws offered strong temptations to go through the form of marriage, when there was no real union, and thereby elude the penalties inflicted on the unmarried state. But there are no clear instances recorded. Some suppose that in the inscription on the tomb of a woman it is affirmed that she had seven husbands; but the interpretation is incorrect, as Wilmanns has conclusively shown. The authentic case of the largest number of husbands is that of the woman of Samaria, who had five husbands, and was living with one who was not her husband. But her case may have been quite peculiar; and, strangely enough, it is to this notorious woman to whom the grandest revelation of universal worship ever made to mortal was vouchsafed. There is no good reason to suppose that divorces were very frequent in ordinary society. There were not the same causes at work as prevailed in the circles in which political power was the predominant motive of action. From the earliest times of subjection came down, the idea that, while the man might marry frequently, the woman ought to marry only once, and this idea had its influence even to the last period of Paganism. In the later period the woman was not forced into marriage, and if her first marriage, owing to her early age, may generally have been the result of parental arrangement, the second would almost certainly be one made with her own free will, and with her eyes open to all the consequences of the act, and therefore it was likely to be a marriage of permanent affection.

Examining history, then, I think we must come to the conclusion that the Roman ideas of marriage had not a bad effect either on the happiness, or morals of the women. If we take the period of Roman history from 150 B.C. to 150 A.D., we shall be surprised at the number of the women of whom it is recorded that they were loved ardently by their husbands, exercised a beneficial influence on them, and helped them in their political or literary work. Many of these women had received an excellent education, they were capable and thoughtful, and took an active interest in the welfare of the State. It is well known that it was Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who inspired her sons with the resolution to cope with the evils that beset the State, and her purpose did not waver when she knew that they had to face death in their country’s cause. Julia, the daughter of Julius Cæsar, and the wife of Pompey, kept the two leaders on good terms as long as she lived, and acted with great sweetness, and prudence. Cornelia, Pompey’s second wife, was a woman of great culture, and a most faithful and devoted wife. Plutarch thus describes her[92]: “The young woman possessed many charms besides her youthful beauty, for she was well instructed in letters, in playing on the lyre, and in geometry, and she had been accustomed to listen to philosophical discourses with profit. In addition to this, she had a disposition free from all affectation and pedantic display, which such acquirements generally breed in women.” The intervention of Octavia, the wife of Antony, in affairs of State was entirely beneficial and judicious. The first Agrippina displayed courage and energy, herself crushed a mutiny among the soldiers, and was in every way a help to her husband. Tacitus praises his mother-in-law, the wife of Agricola, as a model of virtue, and he describes her as living in the utmost harmony with her husband, each preferring the other in love. And Pliny the younger gives a beautiful picture of his wife Calpurnia, telling a friend how she showed the greatest ability, frugality, and knowledge of literature. Especially “she has my books,” he says; “she reads them again and again; she even commits them to memory. What anxiety she feels when I am going to make a speech before the judges, what joy when I have finished it. She places people here and there in the audience to bring her word what applauses have been accorded to my speech, what has been the issue of the trial. If I give readings of my works anywhere, she sits close by, separated by a screen, and drinks in my praises with most greedy ears. My verses also she sings, and sets them to the music of the lyre, no artist guiding her, but only love, who is the best master.”[93]

These are only a few of the numerous instances that might be adduced, in which wives behaved with a gentleness or courage or self-abnegation worthy of all praise. It is true that they took an active part in the management of affairs, but, on the whole, it must be allowed that they acted with great good sense. And there is a curious proof of this in the times of the Empire. Wives went with their husbands to their provinces, and often took part in the administration of them. Some of the old stern moralists were for putting an end to this state of matters, and proposed that they should not be allowed to accompany their husbands to their spheres of duty; but, after a debate in the Senate, the measure was rejected by a large majority, who thereby affirmed that their help was beneficial.[94]

No doubt it was their good sense, their kindliness, and their willingness to co-operate with men, that led to their freedom and power in political matters. And this power was sometimes very great. Cicero,[95] in a letter to Atticus, relates an interview which he had at Antium 44 B.C. with Brutus and Cassius. Favorinus was also present, and besides him there were three women—Servilia, the mother of Brutus; Tertulla, the wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus; and Porcia, the wife of Brutus and daughter of Cato. Servilia strikes in twice in the course of the discussion, and it is evident that her words carried weight. On one of the occasions she promises to get a clause expunged from a decree of the Senate. There must have been many such deliberations where women were present. Even in earlier times the influence of women is represented as great. Livy[96] asserts that Licinius was induced to propose his laws to gratify the ambition of a daughter of M. Fabius Ambustus, whom he had married.

It is true that some of the women who engaged in political affairs were reckless and disagreeable. A woman played a most important and daring part in the Catilinarian conspiracy, and it was through a woman that the plot was revealed. Cicero’s wife, according to his own account of her, knew more of political affairs than he knew of her household arrangements, and when his love grew cold to her, partly perhaps on account of her temper, but partly because he had become fond of a rich young lady, who might help him out of his pecuniary straits, a divorce took place, and Terentia married the political enemy of her former husband. Livia, the wife of Augustus and the mother of Tiberius, was, according to some, the prime mover of most of the public deeds during the reigns of both; but a doubt still remains whether we ought to place her among the good or the bad. But even these women had much enjoyment from their careers and the companionship of their own choice. At all events, the women enjoyed great freedom, and a wide field for the exercise of their power. And many of them certainly made a good use of their opportunities and wealth. Some of them were charitable. They bestowed public buildings and porticoes on the communities among which they lived; they received public honours, and one woman[97] in Africa so impressed her fellow-citizens with her excellence that she was elected one of the two chief magistrates of the place. Especially in Asia Minor did women display public activity. Their generosity took the most various forms, even to bestowing considerable sums on each citizen in their own cities. They erected baths and gymnasia, adorned temples, put up statues, and contributed in every way to the enjoyment of their fellow countrymen. They often presided at the public games or over the great religious ceremonies, having been regularly appointed to this position, and they paid the expenses incurred in these displays. In consequence of this they received the most marked distinctions, and were elected to the highest magistracies. They also held priesthoods, and several of them obtained the highest priesthood of Asia—perhaps the greatest honour that could be paid to any one. And they were admitted to aristocratic clubs, such as the “gerousia” is generally supposed to have been.

It cannot be said that all the professions were thrown open to them, because many of the professions were not open to the men. Medicine and teaching and similar arts were still to a large extent practised by slaves or freedmen, and were deemed unworthy occupations for freeborn citizens. Law was not a profession, and women had a wide range of action in legal matters.

Valerius Maximus[98] mentions that Amaesia—or Maesta (the name is uncertain)—of Sentinum, when accused, pled her own cause amidst a vast concourse of people, and managed the transaction with accurate knowledge of the forms of procedure as well as with bravery. She was acquitted almost unanimously. For her masculine mind they called her Androgyne, or Man-woman. He also mentions Afrania, the wife of the senator Licinius Bucco, whom he brands as fond of getting up lawsuits and pleading her own cause before the prætor, not because she could not procure advocates, but because she had an over-supply of impudence. He says that her name became a byword for a woman of unexampled forwardness and immorality. He states that she died in the first consulship of C. Cæsar, and the second consulship of P. Servilius, that is, in 48 B.C., remarking that her death was the one event in the life of such a monster that deserved record. In the ‘Digests,’ a quotation is made from Ulpian[99] to the effect that women were not allowed to prosecute on behalf of others, because it was not in harmony with the modesty becoming the sex to mix themselves up with other people’s affairs, and assume to themselves functions appropriate to men. The origin of the restriction is assigned to the conduct of a most impudent woman, Carfania, who, by pestering the prætor with her shameless prosecutions, obliged him to issue the prohibition. Some have identified this Carfania with Afrania, but it is likely that the prohibition was made at a later date than 48 B.C.

As we have already seen, the women of Rome sometimes held meetings among themselves in early times, and Livy mentions instances to which I have not alluded. Under the Empire we hear of a regular assembly or corporation of women (Conventus matronarum). On the first occasion on which this Conventus crops up in history, we get a glimpse of the lively scenes which must have occasionally taken place in it. Agrippina, the mother of Nero, had been trying to seduce Galba, who afterwards became Emperor, from fidelity to his wife. His mother-in-law was very wroth with her for this, and when Agrippina came to a meeting of the Conventus she rated her soundly, adding force to her words by vigorous blows with her hands. Afterwards, the Conventus appears again in the reign of Elagabalus, who assigned his mother a place among the senators. He built on the Quirinal a meeting-place for the Conventus, which his biographer calls a Senate, and the matrons decided there the various points of court etiquette, such as precedence and the dresses to be worn by ladies of different ranks. Probably this senate of women came to an end through its absurdity, and we do not hear of it again till the reign of Aurelian, who is said to have restored to women their senate, and to have made the priestesses take first rank in it.[100]

Many Roman women devoted themselves to philosophy and literature, and showed considerable ability in these subjects. But there is no proof that any one of them attained a great reputation. Only one literary work of a Roman woman has come down to us, the Satire of Sulpicia. It is creditable to her good sense and ability, but it does not take a high place among satires.

What, then, are we to say in regard to the morality of the Roman women? Unquestionably some of the Roman writers depict their morals in the blackest colours, but the facts that I have adduced seem to me to prove that the accounts are greatly exaggerated. It would be absurd to deny that there were many bad women in Roman society, just as there have been bad men and women in all societies, but we are apt to form too gloomy a picture of the conduct of the women, because it has been the delight of writers, who wish to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to heathenism, to bring out into special prominence the supposed vices and humiliations of pagan women. But in regard to this matter it is of great importance that we view the facts from the right point.

First of all we must be on our guard against confounding Pagan with Christian notions of morality. The Romans highly esteemed purity in a woman, but they confined these ideas of purity to the female citizens, and their notions were based on the necessity of having a pure and unadulterated breed of citizens. Their notions of purity did not extend to the male citizens, and therefore, when the woman was still under the control of the husband, the woman could not divorce her husband, though her husband could divorce her without assigning a reason to her. There was, indeed, an institution among the Romans which has been thought to exalt the idea of purity and virginity. But a slight knowledge of Roman thought shows the error of this opinion. Every sacrifice offered to a god required to be pure. The ox that was to be sacrificed must not have dragged the plough or undergone any toil. It must be reared and kept exclusively for the homage that was paid to the god. And so the vestal virgins consecrated to the goddess Vesta must be pure and undefiled by subjection to any one, as long as they were in the service of the goddess. But this was not a moral but a ritual purification. Marriage was not an obstruction to service to a god, if the god presided over functions that were consistent with it and, indeed, in all the great priesthoods in Rome it was essential that the priest should be married, for his wife acted as the priestess, and it was advantageous that the priest should have a family, as his children were expected to assist in his various priestly functions. Even the vestal virgins were allowed to marry, after they had served the goddess for the prescribed period of thirty years. The Roman women were not therefore restrained by a sense of moral wrong in connexion with this matter. And accordingly when they escaped from the firm grasp of the husband’s power, they could not see why that which was allowed to the man should not be allowed to the woman; why, if he gratified his passions without restraint or the condemnation of society, the same indulgence should not be conceded to her. And, accordingly, some of them did plunge into the wildest careers of licentiousness and shamelessness. They adopted the prevalent philosophy of the day, Epicureanism, with their fathers and brothers and husbands; they abjured all belief in a future state and in moral distinctions, and they acted as the men who held the same creed did. Others of them took to Platonism,[101] and were particularly fond of “The Republic,” because it advocated community of wives. But these women were not worse than the men of their day, and there were much fewer bad women than bad men.

Then our ideas of the immorality of Roman women are often drawn from what is said of the women connected with the Court of the early Empire. But our accounts of these women are derived from a bitter satirist, a pessimist historian, and a scandal-mongering biographer. And there can be no doubt that the most notorious of the licentious women of the Court had, like the men, a strong taint of insanity. If we take into consideration what I have already said about all Pagan notions of purity, and along with this keep in sight the state of matters at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, I think that a milder view of the case will present itself to us. The Roman Republic came to an end through the rivalry of the great houses, whose matrons are the subjects of history. These houses were divided against each other, even though they were sometimes closely related by blood and marriage. Occasionally, even son was arrayed against father, and nephew against uncle. The lives of the principal men were in continual jeopardy. Very many of them died violent deaths. Their homes were thus frequently broken up, and selfish feelings were brought prominently into play. In these circumstances women had to act a difficult part, and their motives were often misconstrued.

Thus the suspicion is suggested that Livia, the wife of Augustus, had frequent recourse to poison; but surely the circumstances of the case render this suspicion doubtful. Livia was unquestionably a bold, resolute woman, and took an active part in the management of the Empire. She had been married before, and by her former husband had two sons, one of whom was Tiberius. Augustus also had been married before, and had one daughter, Julia. It was natural that Augustus should seek to establish his dynasty through his own daughter Julia, and not through his stepson. Accordingly he gave her in marriage to his nephew Marcellus, whom he intended to be his successor, but Marcellus died at an early age without offspring. Augustus then gave the widowed Julia in marriage to Agrippa, in whom he had great confidence, but Agrippa died also. Agrippa left a family, two of whom were youths of much promise, and Augustus naturally looked to these grandsons as possible successors, but they died also. Meantime Augustus gave his daughter in marriage to his stepson Tiberius, who by no means valued the gift; for he had to part from a wife whom he loved to unite himself with a wife whom he detested, and whom all the world knew to be dissolute. And in the end Tiberius succeeded to his throne. Now it was suggested that Livia from the first had made up her mind to make Tiberius the successor of Augustus, and that, with this object, she employed poison—poisoning Marcellus, poisoning Agrippa and his two sons, and probably poisoning Augustus himself. But we must suppose the acts of poisoning to be most fitful; for Marcellus died in 23 B.C., Agrippa in 12 B.C., the sons of Agrippa in 2 A.D. and 4 A.D., and Augustus himself in 14 A.D., each at a considerable interval of years from the other; and it seems to me impossible that, if a woman had made up her mind that her son should succeed, she would follow out her plan only at widely separate periods.

Some of the other women who are notorious for their bad conduct were unquestionably bad. But in the case of Messalina, whose name has become a byword, it has to be remembered that she was only twenty-six years of age when she died. The second Agrippina, who is equally infamous for her wickedness, may be paying the penalty for having written memoirs, in which she blackened the characters of her contemporaries. And nearly all the women who are gibbeted as monsters of iniquity belonged to the imperial family. The Emperor held a position of power and glory such as never had fallen to the lot of any mortal before him. The wealth and honours that were heaped on him were such as might turn the head of any man. They could not but have a very injurious effect on the women of the family. The descendants of this family intermarried cousins with cousins, or even in closer connexion, and, between the unique exaltation of their lot and the frequent intermarriages, need we wonder that a taint of insanity infected them? I think that in this way we may account for a considerable number of the wild excesses that are laid to their charge.

I do not deny that there were many licentious women outside of the imperial circle; I do not deny that there may have been some foundation for the railing accusations which Juvenal brings against the sex; but I am confident that these accusations are exaggerated in a high degree.

And if there were women who plunged into vice because they saw their husbands and brothers claim and exercise the wildest licence for themselves, there were other women who took an opposite course. They argued that the equality was right, but that men and women were equally bound to abstain from licentiousness, that the same law prevailed for the man as for the woman. This opinion was a tenet of the Stoic philosophy, and it was to this sect of philosophers that many of the noblest Roman women belonged. I will mention but two of them. Porcia, the daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus, was a Stoic—“a philosopher,” as Plutarch says,[102] “full of spirit and good sense.” When married to Brutus, she perceived that her husband did not communicate to her his political movements and secrets. So she removed all her attendants, took a knife, and inflicted a deep wound in her thigh so that the blood flowed out copiously and then fever ensued. Her husband, in alarm, came to her, and she then addressed him: “I, Brutus, Cato’s daughter, was given unto thy house, not, like women who serve as concubines, to share thy bed and board only, but to be a partner in thy happiness and a partner in thy sorrows. But, with respect to thy marriage, everything is blameless on thy part; but as to me what evidence is there, or what affection, if I must neither share with thee a secret sorrow nor a care which demands confidence? I know that a woman’s nature is considered too weak to carry a secret, but, Brutus, there is a certain power towards making moral character in a good nurture and an honest life: and I am Cato’s daughter and also Brutus’s wife, whereon hitherto I had less relied, but now I know that I am also invincible to pain.”[103] Then she showed her husband the wound. He admired the deed, and, stretching out his hands, he prayed the gods “that they would render him worthy of so noble a wife.”

The other Stoic woman whom I shall mention is the well-known Arria, the wife of Pætus. Pliny gives the following narrative, received from her granddaughter: “Her husband, Cæcina Pætus, was sick; her son also was sick, both, to all appearance, by a fatal attack. The son died; a youth of exquisite beauty, of equal modesty, and dear to the parents as much because he was their son as for other reasons. She made all the preparations for the funeral, and paid the last rites to him, in such a way that her husband remained in ignorance of what was going on. Whenever she entered his chamber she pretended that her son still lived and was even improving in health. And when he often asked, ‘How is my boy?’ she would answer, ‘He had a good night, he took a little food eagerly.’ But when the tears, long kept in check, overcame her and began to stream forth, she would go outside and give herself up to a flood of grief, and then come back with dry eyes and calm countenance.”[104] It was this same woman who taught her husband how to die. He had received commands from the Emperor Claudius to put himself to death. He hesitated. His wife thereupon took a dagger, plunged it into her breast, drew it out and offered it to her husband, with the words, “Pætus, it does not pain.” There were many such Stoic women. What opinions did they entertain in regard to the education and position of their sex? We are well informed on this point.

A Stoic philosopher, C. Musonius Rufus, who flourished in the time of Nero, spoke or wrote treatises on the education of women and on marriage, and large fragments of his sayings or writings have come down to us. He argues that the same training and education must be suitable for both sexes. He affirms that this ought to be the case for training in all the mental qualities, but that possibly certain tasks may in some cases be more appropriate for man or for woman. The sum of his exposition is perhaps contained in the following words:[105] “I say that, as in the human race men have a stronger and women a weaker nature, each of these natures should have the tasks assigned to it which are most suited to it, and the heavier should be allotted to the stronger, and the lighter to the weaker. Spinning, as well as house-keeping, would, therefore, be more suitable for women than for men; while gymnastics, as well as out-of door work, would be fitter for men than for women; though sometimes some men might properly undertake some of the lighter tasks and such as seem to belong to women; and women, again, might engage in the harder tasks, and those which appear more appropriate for men, in cases where either bodily qualities or necessity or particular occasions might lead to such action. For perhaps all human tasks are open to all, and common both to men and women, and nothing is necessarily appointed exclusively for either; not that some things may not be more suitable for one, and others for the other nature, so that some are called men’s and others women’s occupations. But whatever things have reference to virtue, these one may rightly affirm to be equally appropriate to both natures, since we say that virtues do not belong more to the one than to the other.” Musonius applies his principle of equality to sexual relations and to marriage. He held that what was wrong in a woman was equally wrong in a man, or rather was more disgraceful to a man, inasmuch as he claimed to be a stronger being, and therefore more capable of controlling his passions. He therefore denounced all illicit amours as unjust and lawless. He also propounded a view which was afterwards adopted by the Christian writers, that all indulgence of the flesh not requisite for the propagation of the race was unworthy of a philosopher. But he differed from the great mass of the Christian writers, and regarded marriage as the happiest condition of life. He describes it as a community of life, and a mutual care for each other in health and sickness, and in every occurrence of life, and he brands a marriage when there is no community of feeling as worse than a desert. He argued that the man who does not marry must be inferior in his experience and usefulness to the man who does, and that therefore the solitary life is not advantageous even for the philosophers. And he urges that the whole of civilization rests upon the institution of marriage. “For,” says he, “the man who takes away marriage from the human race takes away the household, takes away the State, takes away the human race.”

The opinions of Musonius and the Stoics greatly influenced subsequent legislation in regard to marriage. But this is an obscure and disputable subject, and we can refer here only to the commencement of legislation on marriage. It was the Emperor Augustus who first drew up laws in regard to it. Before his time marriage was deemed essentially a private transaction, and no enactments had taken place in reference to it except as to the disposition of dowries. Family councils controlled it, and, like all other private acts, it was subject to the judgment of the Censors, who in this matter followed prevalent opinion. The prevailing opinion was that all Romans were bound to marry. The Censors put the question to every Roman, “On your word of honour have you a wife?” If the answer was in the negative the Censor weighed all the circumstances of the case, and, if he deemed the man negligent of his duty, he imposed on him a fine called uxorium. From the earliest times it had been reckoned a Roman’s imperative duty to marry. Dionysius embodies this practice in the statement that the “ancient law compelled all adults to marry.” The historians mention several instances in which the penalty for neglect of this custom was imposed by the Censors.[106]

We are told[107] that the Censors, M. Furius Camillus and M. Postumius Albinus, in 403 B.C., obliged all who had reached old age without marrying to pay a sum of money to the public treasury, and Valerius Maximus, in stating this fact, puts into their mouths words to the following effect: “As nature imposes on man the necessity of being born, so it imposes on him the obligation to produce birth, and your parents bind you by maintaining you to the obligation of maintaining their grandchildren. In addition to this, fortune has given you a long period to listen to her appeals to you to perform this duty, while, in the meantime, your years have wasted away, and you have remained without the name of either husband or father. Go, then, and pay the knotty coin which will be useful to a numerous posterity.” We need place no implicit belief in the exact details of this narrative, and Plutarch may be nearer the truth when he relates that the Censors induced, either by persuasion or penalties, the unmarried Romans of their day to wed the women who had been made widows by the devastating wars of Veii. But, whatever may have been the particular occurrences, there can be no doubt that the sentiments put by Maximus into the mouths of the Censors were the genuine sentiments of the Roman people, and they continued to be the same till the latest days of the Republic. We are told[108] that Quintus Metellus in his censorship, the date of which is uncertain, but it was either 131 B.C. or 101 B.C.—according as we accept the statement of Livy that it was Quintus Metellus Macedonicus, or the statement of Gellius that it was Quintus Metellus Numidicus—urged that all should be forced to marry liberorum creandorum causa, and delivered a speech on marriage which Augustus[109] deemed so convincing that he read it aloud in the Senate, and drew the attention of the people to it by edict. And Cicero, in his treatise ‘De Legibus,’[110] makes it part of the duty of Censors to prevent people being bachelors.

There would not be the same obligation on females to marry, but it is likely that every Roman citizen girl married. It is probable that the number of the females was not so great as that of the males. Every father had the right to expose his children, and, while he had no reason to make away with his male children, the necessity of providing dowries for females would induce him to think seriously before he took up and reared the female children that were born to him.

This, then, was the state of matters in the best times of the Republic; but this state was changed by the violent civil wars that preceded the establishment of the Empire. Then the great families of the commonwealth were decimated and family ties broken up. A feeling of the utter uncertainty of life and an indifference to its continuance pervaded all classes. Moreover, luxurious habits had become prevalent. Formerly sons with their wives lived in the house of their father, and constituted, in fact as in law, one family. Instances of this conjoint family life are recorded so late as the second century B.C. But now the expense of bringing up a family had come to be felt by many as a burden, and the trouble of family cares was regarded as an encroachment on the enjoyments of life. And hence arose an unwillingness to marry. People saw no good and felt no pride in having families. Their children might be a curse to them, or they might be exposed to lives of poverty, accusations, harassment, and proscription—lives, in fact, which were miseries, and not blessings. But Augustus held that the prevalence of such sentiments and practices was fatal to the welfare of a State, and the special circumstances of the time made them peculiarly dangerous to Rome. For the State had suffered enormous loss by its civil wars. Appian[111] asserts that at the census of Julius Cæsar it was said that the population was only half of what it had been before these wars. Dio Cassius[112] describes the scarcity of the population as terrible, and the number of women had decreased. Friedländer[113] estimates the free population of Rome in 5 B.C., omitting senators, knights, and soldiers, as consisting of 320,000 males and 265,600 females.

A remedy for this state of matters was urgently required, and Augustus believed that a remedy could be found only in legislation. Accordingly legislation was the remedy which he adopted. The accounts of this legislation are very confused. Mention is made of three Bills—one, Julia de adulteriis coercendis; a second, Julia de maritandis ordinibus; and a third, Lex Papia Poppæa. He commenced his legislation in the very beginning of his reign, in 28 B.C.; but as, on assuming the supreme power, he abrogated the decrees of the triumvirate, and claimed to be restoring the Republic, his Bills had to go through the ordinary processes of discussion in the Senate and proposal to the Assembly. This afforded scope for every form of obstruction, and, besides difficulties in passing the Bills, the laws met with fierce private resistance. The Lex Papia Poppæa probably embodied all the regulations which Augustus had made in regard to marriage, with such additions and amendments as experience had proved to be necessary. Its great object, was to encourage and reward marriage, and punish and prevent celibacy. Before passing his final law, the Lex Papia Poppæa, in 9 A.D., Dio Cassius[114] states that Augustus, knowing that the equites were eager for the abrogation of his previous laws, summoned the whole of them to a meeting. He divided them into two classes—those who had married and those who had not. He deplored the fact that the latter class was more numerous, and addressed to them strong words of reproof, and at the same time expounded the reasons why marriage should be praised and rewarded, and bachelors condemned and fined. The principal points of this speech are contained in the first two chapters of Dio Cassius, 56. “That first and greatest god,” he says, “who fashioned us divided the mortal race into two, the male and the female, in order, through the instinctive love of the one to the other, he might make that which was mortal eternal after a fashion from continual new births. And he who is born of a father is bound to become a father if the race is to continue. Every feeling of patriotism makes this a sacred duty. And what better means could there be than a chaste wife, guardian and manager of the house, a rearer of children, for cheering the man when he is in good health and attending to him when he is ill, sharing with him his good fortune and consoling him in misfortune, restraining the mad impulses of the young and tempering the unseasonable austerity of the old? What could be more delightful than to take up a child, the offspring of both, and rear and educate him, an image of the body and an image of the soul, so that the man himself reappear in this child when he grows to maturity.”

Julius Cæsar, painfully alive to the effects of the civil wars on the destiny of the Empire, had already offered rewards for a numerous offspring, and we find that in his agrarian law for the distribution of lands in Campania, he gave the lots to fathers of three or more children, of whom at the time there were twenty thousand. Augustus resolved to carry out this idea systematically. Any married woman who had three children received special privileges, and the jus trium liberorum became an honour, which was also conferred at first by the Senate, and subsequently by the Emperors, on distinguished women on whom nature had not bestowed the requisite number of children. Four children released a freedwoman from the guardianship of her patron, and three children put a free patroness on an equality with a patron.[115]

Similar privileges were conferred on men. The consul who had the greater number of children had precedence over him who had fewer, and the married consul took precedence of the unmarried. The candidate for office who had children was permitted to assume certain offices of state at an earlier age than the unmarried, and other privileges were bestowed on the married. Fines and disabilities were imposed on bachelors. The ages fixed for males were twenty and sixty, and for women twenty and fifty and whoever was unmarried within these ages was subjected to a tax, and could not become heir except to near relatives and could not receive legacies.

Such were some of the provisions of this Lex Papia Poppæa for the encouragement of marriage. Our information in regard to it is in many respects defective and unsatisfactory. The law was much discussed by subsequent jurists, and it is likely that some of the clauses, which are represented as the work of Augustus, were inserted by later legislators.

Augustus did in regard to adultery what he did in regard to marriage. He translated ordinary private practice into public law, and on the whole made the conduct of the Romans milder than it had been, though he was strongly tempted by the licentiousness of his daughter to prescribe stern punishment for the crime. His law required that the divorce should take place in regular form. The freedman of the man who wished to divorce must hand over the repudium, or bill of divorce, in the presence of seven Romans of full age, and the wife who wished a divorce must do the same. The law ordained, that a woman who was found guilty of adultery should be banished to an island, and lose half of her dowry and a third of her property, and similar punishments were inflicted on a faithless husband. In the case of the wife, it still lay with the husband to inflict the penalty, and he himself was liable to be punished if he did not carry out the sentence. The husband could still kill his wife if he found her in the act; but he could execute vengeance only if he put to death both the guilty parties.

The Lex de maritandis ordinibus, which was no doubt embodied in the Lex Papia Poppæa, brings to light a new phase of Roman life. Distinctions had arisen among the Roman citizens, and more anxiety was felt to maintain the honour and purity of the highest of these classes than to preserve the ordinary Roman citizen from the outside world. Senators were forbidden to marry freedwomen, but all other citizens were allowed to marry them, owing to the scarcity of free women, but prohibited from marrying prostitutes, procuresses, condemned criminals, and actresses.

The legislation of Augustus in regard to marriage has generally been regarded as a failure. Horace celebrated the success of the Lex Julia de adulterio cohibendo in Ode iv. 5:—