Talk:Women in ancient Rome

Ovid vs Customs of the Ancestors
Topic coming in.--ScriptusSecundus (talk) 22:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"Tiberius intervenes"
The use of long verbatim extracts is not helpful, particularly when the source is Suetonius. His take on the Caesars is not well-balanced (to put it mildly) and should not be regarded as a reliable primary source on who did what to whom. To put it less mildly, he's an enthusiastic gossip-monger. I can't see why this was included - it does not illuminate the subject. If Tiberius is relevant – and he may well be – modern scholarly sources will point it out. Otherwise, please consider removing the section. Haploidavey (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I hope it's clear that the forgoing is about the basic requirement for an overall neutral point of view in articles, not their censorship. Haploidavey (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Criticism well taken I will change the section about Tiberius, we wouldn't want to appear anti-Empire biased in an article that mainly focuses on Imperial Society.

I suppose uncritical quoting of the ultimate emperor hater is going too far, the section will be replaced with a more balanced aproach by tommorow. --ScriptusSecundus (talk) 22:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Your good humour in this and your article edit summary are much appreciated! Haploidavey (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you and useful criticism is always welcome--ScriptusSecundus (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Citation tags
I just need to point out that a "citation" tag invites citation, not an unsourced example. The recent addition of Commodus' reported behaviour (under "Domestic abuse") is unsourced. The tag should be restored or a source provided - of course the latter's preferable. Haploidavey (talk) 16:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC) The source is coming now, sorry I didn't notice the problem before. ScriptusSecundus (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikification
What exactly needs to be done to wikify the article? I am open to suggestions, but don't want to remove the tag before I'm sure it is justified. --ScriptusSecundus (talk) 05:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Best way to get a grasp on this is to look at any article rated F, GA (or even B) and spot the diffs in layout, links and citation. You might also adopt the examples and advice of wikipedias tutorials on editing (see the links on the welcome message at your user-page) but meantime here's a couple of pointers.


 * Blue-links! Wikipedia blue-links offer a sort of internal index and cross-reference system that finds things in a trice. This article shows very few.


 * Citations! should be inline, and notes/references should follow a single format (this needs fixing). Give page numbers (already done here in most cases), so readers can confirm the accuracy of article content; that's a minimum of one inline citation per statement. If several statements can be covered by a single citation and clumped in a paragraph, that's fine. Each paragraph needs a minimum of one citation; some of the se paragraphs here are long, dense and tricky to read. Paragraph breaks help the reader digest and keep track of topics and subtopics as they unfold.


 * And as a PS - you might change some of your wording; or rather, rein it in a little: articles should represent sources, not personally favoured arguments. Regards, Haploidavey (talk) 10:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I will start on the worst sections and bring them back as they are repaired.--ScriptusSecundus (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You didn't need to remove the "worst" sections: OK they needed work, but were nonetheless interesting and spirited; try a copy and paste instead. Haploidavey (talk) 11:53, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I would have brought them back earlier (some tech problems delayed it). I have for the most part repaired both sections and will bring them back. ScriptusSecundus (talk) 06:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Domestic abuse
I think the first paragraph of this section is nonsense. The pater familias had power to physically punish his subordinates in what today would be described as severe domestic abuse. In fact during some periods, at least theoretically, he had the power of life and death. If you are saying that domestic violence was not sanctioned in ancient Rome you better come up with some viewable sources quick. —Othniel Kenaz 07:14, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The Pater Familias had no power over his wife during most of the period this article covers. A woman's status was alieni iuris if her father was alive, and sui iuris if her father was dead. A husband was not a woman's father, before Marcus Aurelius changed it a father could force his daughter to leave her husband. Marriage Sine Manu stands out because it created no change in status for husband or wife. If you would like a disclaimer i.e. "under classical roman law" (I forget if that was there) I could add one.ScriptusSecundus (talk) 06:22, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

problems remaining
There's a lot of discussion that I just archived, including an incredibly long and barely relevant ramble by myself, but several of the problems still remain. Still some basic problems of organization. There's no section about growing up and education. Most of the article repeats technical material on legal aspects of Roman marriage that belongs in Marriage in ancient Rome. Some very very strange capitalization; see WP:CAPITAL (in a nutshell, follow the capitalization of your modern sources). WP style is that articles titles and subheads are "downstyle," that is, they follow normal sentence capitalization, not conventions for titles. And please, if you aren't fluent in Latin, check the spelling of Latin words very closely: confarreatio was misspelled throughout. I'm trying to do some basic copyediting now. Much hard work and many improvements, though. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Lots of copyediting left. I did some reorganization, which will have screwed up first links and first refs. In doing so, the major observation I would make is that the section on marriage law is extremely disproportionate, especially since the article Marriage in ancient Rome exists. Frankly, it's boring, if what you've come to read about is the subject of women's lives and instead you get a bunch of legalese. This is perhaps because the (good-quality) source Casebook on Roman Family Law is used so extensively. Perhaps the most active editor here (ScriptusSecundus) should take a look at the marriage article, and try to reduce some repetitions, emphasizing here the effect on women's lives. In particular, the Augustan legislative "reforms" are more interesting if you look at how the attitudes behind them affected his own family. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

daughter
I just rewrote the section, because when I started looking at Frier (and then at Rawson, which was not used), it didn't seem in line with the sources. One problem is that mores change from the earlier Republic to the Late, and throughout the Empire. This needs to be a moving picture, not a single snapshot out of time universally. Regretfully, I removed a referenced statement to Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome: The People and the City at the Height of the Empire (London: George Routledge and Sons LTD, 1941), which ought to be in there, because when I looked over C's chapter, the article seemed rather at odds with what C. really said, and I don't have time at present to figure it all out. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

daily life
I'm trying to add more material about daily life, life stages, and that sort of thing. In no way should this be considered a criticism of all the hard work done by ScriptusSecundus here. Though there are some issues of copyediting, organization, and proportion, SS has worked carefully and diligently for months to source and develop the article. As I think about adding this "daily life" material, I see that I may seem to push SS's work on legal standing and marriage law deeper into the article. I hope that's OK. I think readers may want first a more general survey of how Roman women lived, and then will be prepared for the more technical/legal explanations of why this should be so. I'm also trying to bring a more historical structure (eventually): the evolution from Archaic to Imperial Rome might need to be ordered better (this seems to have raised a question above about domestic abuse and the patria potestas, which I think SS understood well).

My methods here may raise some questions. I'm reading the overview type of sources and writing what I hope to be a readable, accessible narrative of life stages. I'm doing this piecemeal, a chunk at a time, and these may at first appear unsourced: please feel free to tag and I'll add citations as promptly as I can. I just don't want to get lost in minutiae, and I'm working on a few things at once. Tag away and I'll address your concerns with the material I've added, or of course do whatever you want yourself. I'll add meticulous citations once I get a paragraph or two written. Hope this makes sense. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Restructuring
I'm trying to restructure this article, so I'm putting this material here for now. I mean, section headers on Augustus and Tiberius, no sections on any actual Roman women? A lot of this is related to material in other sections, into which it should be incorporated.

Augustus
Augustus was convinced that the Rome of the late Republic caused hesitation by men to marry

Although Horace praises Augustus for resurrecting old traditions in social legislation his unpopular legislation on marriage and adultery was a break from the past. Augustus launched separate laws in 18 BC and 9 AD, however because we don't know what the individual laws said and all later Roman Jurists referred to them as the same law, but we could state what the end result was.

On Marriage Augustus decreed that a Senator's sons, sons' sons and grandsons, their daughters, sons' daughters and sons' sons' daughters to marry anyone branded with Infamia (so for example a Senator's son could not marry an actress, and a senator's daughter could not marry a pimp).

Under the Augustan Marriage reforms unmarried men and women could remain unmarried but faced penalties for choosing to remain such a "Caeleb". A Caeleb could not receive an inheritance outside of the 6th degree of kinship, so while a bachelor could inherit from his father as a Sui Heredes, he could not receive an inheritance from an unrelated Patron or a close friend. To receive a full inheritance from a person outside the 6th degree of kinship a man or woman would have to have children and be married (unclaimed property went to intestate heirs if they existed, or conveniently to the Imperial Treasury)

Augustan Marriage Legislation also tied inheritance from a spouse to rights gained from having children (in the absence of children, forfeited property meant for a spouse would go first to intestate heirs, then to the Imperial Treasury).

Adultery criminalized
Moralists considered the level of sexual discipline in the Later Republic and Early Empire to be low, and objected to increasingly assertive and independent women. One reason for objection was moralist considered it improper for women to be tough, while the other reason was that as the forum was a place of great turmoil it was not the proper place for a physically and emotionally weak woman. Moralists did not get their beliefs from pure (and contradictory) misogyny, their inspiration came from Mos Maiorum or the Will of the Ancestors, and the belief that the best model for Rome was in its past instead of the present.

Claiming to be motivated by Mos Maiorum Augustus launched legislation against Adultery along with legislation to force marriage. Augustus' adultery legislation was not enforced outside of his own family and banishing Ovid (who Augustus did not approve of). The legislation only had a limited number of people it could be enforced against (Women working as prostitutes, procuress in acting, gladiatrix, anyone branded with Infamia, women who owned or operated a trade or business, along with plebians had exemptions from the Augustan Adultery legislation ). Not exempt were Senatorial, Imperial, or Equestrian Women (unless they qualified for an exemption based on profession). Legislation that can not be enforced against most people is hardly likely to prevent illegal sex, but it is possible that the purpose of criminalizing adultery was to reinforce the idea of marriage as an exclusive sexual union. Whatever result Augustus' law had on Rome as a whole his family was divided. Augustus' wife Livia made a great show of living by the austerity Augustus preached and legislated and even anti-Imperial writers like Tacitus agreed she put forth a very strong appearance. However his own daughter seems to have been driven away from the emperor. Although it is possibly an exaggeration many of Julia's lovers had great figures from the Roman Republic like Sulla as ancestors. Before Augustus learned about her amours Julia appears to have been keeping up a double life, as she would sometimes dress very conservatively. How Julia kept her affairs a secret from the most powerful man in the world is a mystery, but her ability to avoid scandal for years does not suggest that the adultery laws had nearly the amount of support Horace claimed for them. The banishment of Julia was not popular, and most Romans seem to have wanted Julia to be forgiven and welcomed back to Rome. Augustus did not have any luck with his oldest granddaughter either, because he had to exile Julia the Younger for adultery as well (and execute her husband for attempting to kill him).

Tiberius
Augustus was followed as "Princeps" by Tiberius in 14 AD. Traditionally Tiberius has been given very negative press, perhaps because he of an (allegeded) degenerate private life, but more likely because of his moves against Republican intellectuals. Despite moves against restoring the Republic in practice Tiberius favored keeping older forms (although not realities). The most important form Tiberius saved was the position of Flamen Dialis by removing the Manus from confarreatio outside of religious ceremony (effectively destroying even theoretical power of a husband over his wife). According to the Roman Historian Suetonius Tiberius had a habit of ignoring the letter of the law and punishing women with exemptions to the Julian Adultery Laws as long as they had high birth, while he enjoyed "criminal obscenity almost too vile to discuss". However Tacitus only shows him imposing such an arbitrary approach once, and indicates that there was more to the trial. Tiberius using a double standard towards upper class women seems to show he agreed with Augustus that they should be made to set an example of austerity, unfortunately the "dry, brief auto-biography"

Comments
On my talk-page, Cyn points out some of the problems to be dealt with here; I agree with her take. Her removal of the sections above seems a good start. If we insist on constructing women's lives as passive, defiant or repressed in relation to dominant men - whether lawyers, emperors, fathers or husbands - or the institutions they figurehead, the article's probably stymied from the outset.

I'm writing this in the throes of sweet domestic conversation on what we look for in an article on Women in ancient Rome, and sort-of wishing I hadn't asked (things got a bit heated, in an interesting way). If I can render it down to anything useful, I'll post here but meanwhile, I've tried to imagine the article I'd like to find here - a tricky business, because I always like to be told things I don't already know, or be given new insights, preferable those I couldn't have possibly imagined. Preferably, no old tropes; and no taking Cato at face value. So some up-to-date secondary sources might help unpack the topic, or topics; I had a few surprises while researching the Bona Dea article, and will come back to this. Haploidavey (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I've done my stint in honor of International Women's Day. It still needs copyediting, and development in some areas. I also keep encountering organizational problems — material pertaining to "luxury," for instance, was scattered hither and yon. We might be talking about motherhood, and then skip to something else, and then back. So I've done what I could do today. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

"Concubinage"?
I wonder if the above title is correct for the chapter in question. This chapter describes a relationship between a man and a women who lives together in a long term relationshop without being married. That is exactly what many modern people do nowadays, and that is not called concubinage. The word "concubinage" suggests a relationship where a woman lives with a man who supports her, often a married man, a form of prostitution. Perhaps the title should be changed. We should not aply 19th-century puritanical values on an acnient custom which is more comparable with modern day customs. --Aciram (talk) 17:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment. I've worked on this article, but not this section. "Concubine" is a word of Latin origin: the verb concumbo, -ere, concubitum means to "lie with," hence the abstract noun concubitio, "intercourse," and the related nouns concubina and (masculine) concubinus, the latter referring to the male companion of a male. I can't vouch for whether the term is used correctly here, as I haven't checked the sources on this section. The section does note, however, that this would typically be a relationship of unequal status, with the woman a social inferior not considered a suitable wife for whatever reasons (though these were subject to change). The inequality of social status with attendant legal restrictions is very much unlike modern "living together." The arrangement as described here is also different from what's typically meant in Roman literature (I'm thinking of erotic elegies such as those of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid) by a "mistress" or "girlfriend," in which the woman might even be socially superior (as in the case of Catullus and the fictionalized "Lesbia"), or married to someone else. At the moment I'm not seeing reference in the article to contubernium, which is more like what we think of as living together. As the article does indicate, though perhaps not as clearly as it should, there were several different forms of marriage in ancient Rome (q.v.), depending on the social and legal status of the two parties. I'll try to look into the questio when I can, as I confess that formal or legal concubinage doesn't strike me as a particularly Roman practice. Since prostitutes were an acceptable sexual outlet (that old dog Cato the Elder said it was better to exercise your sexual tastes on prostitutes than to trouble your honored wife), and since extramarital affairs were open secrets, formal concubinage doesn't play the kind of role in Rome that it would in some other societies. Again, thanks for expressing your concerns. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of sections on marriage re: soldiers and slaves
Scriptus, I have with regret deleted your recent and very interesting additions of sections on marriage to soldiers and marriage among slaves. Here's why:


 * Not a single source was cited.
 * This article is on Women in ancient Rome, not Marriage in ancient Rome, therefore (as with the detailed legalese I deleted earlier), the minutiae of every form of marriage doesn't go here, but rather in the article on marriage.
 * If sourced, the material on the life of a soldier's wife can be restored at least in part, but integrated into discussion of married life. A caution: some of this seemed to confuse women in the provinces with "Women in ancient Rome." Yes, eventually in the Empire everybody was in some sense Roman; but the issue with soldiers marrying local women probably takes us outside the scope of this article, unless the distinction is handled carefully, because it becomes a question of citizenship. There was also a POV problem: it shifted from the POV of the women to the POV of the soldiers.
 * Marriage among slaves again belongs to Marriage in ancient Rome, but with some description here. However, under the header "Slavery" in this article we currently lack an overview of the lives of women as slaves in Rome, to which their ability to marry or not would belong.

Please feel free to disagree and discuss here, as I don't imagine I'm always right. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Prostitution as a punishment
The only known sources are examples of Christian martyrs, they should be mentioned or the idea should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.56.186.182 (talk) 05:03, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you supply a source to support the statement that "the only known sources are examples of Christian martyrs"? As for the sentence in the article, see this partial preview  of McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome.  Note the incomplete preview of p.19. We shouldn't use partial previews because we can't check the sources or context. But perhaps an editor with full access to the book will happen by. Interim, I take the snippet view as evidence of Roman laws imposing the lawful relegation of some women to the "prostitute class" for adultery, or so it would seem to me from a brief read-around through those snippets. But I can't make out whether prostitution as an activity was ever imposed on women for adultery or other offenses. - aha, found it; see p 171 of the above. Will add citation to the article.  Haploidavey (talk) 11:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * See also p. 310: while some slave women had a clause in their sales contract prohibiting their use as prostitutes, others who weren't already sex workers could be punished through forced prostitution in a brothel. This wasn't something invented as a special punishment for Christian women. Though outré, one might also recall the forced prostitution of "matrons and youths" by Caligula: whatever that bit of power-theater was about, the insult was directed at "good" Roman families. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move
The article should be renamed Women in ancient Rome. "ancient" should start with small letter. I cannot move because of a technical reason. Huang (talk in public in private &#124; contribs) 14:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This was done czar ♔  03:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

For the reviewer
I'm afraid I can't taken on the GAR for this article at the moment, although I'd like to, but I would suggest to the nom that there's a chunk of content missing -

Currently, the late empire is treated with the single phrase "The Christianization of the Empire, beginning with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, eventually had consequences for the legal status of women.". This is certainly true, but it's pretty glib and all that the article seems to mention about the late empire. Marriage law changed radically, and the status of women changed with it. There's also the influence of the female saint and martyr cults and the new holy women who play a big role in late Christian texts. I'd recommend Evans-Grubb's Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine's Marriage Legislation and/or Cooper's The Fall of the Roman Household which argues that this actually led to the collapse of the empire!

To neglect basically the whole of the late empire seems quite a problem in my opinion. Good luck with the nomination though - what is there is very good indeed! —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:00, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Enslaved women?
Is it intentional to exclude enslaved women from the scope of the article, if so why? I thought the opening sentence should be amended ("Freeborn women in ancient Rome were citizens...) as it seemed to misleadingly (as I thought) give the impression that the article scope was limited to freeborn women. But then looking through the article I see no coverage of enslaved women. The section headed Slavery only covers freedwomen. So it looks as though slaves are deliberately not covered. But why? DeCausa (talk) 17:43, 5 April 2024 (UTC)