Week 10 - Lecture

  • Women have a bit more agency

  • Not subject to the same kinds of sequestration and isolation the women in Classical Athens are

  • The wall painting of Pompeii demonstrate only women at the dinner party which is a counterpart to the symposium scene of Classical Athens and we have the opposite scene of this wall painting, all of the partiers of women and no men are seen whatsoever. The interiority/daily life of women are indpeendent from male relatives in this period

  • The proper attire for a married roman woman turns up

  • Question fo whether this is a commonw ay tod ress and same comes up for men’s clothing - empress livia in traditional matron’s dress

  • Most likely people aren’t choosing to wear the garment,so it has to be legislated

  • The experience of the law can be different

  • The style of the dress has lots of symbolism in artwork aside from being referenced in literature

Adultery and Divorce

  • Lots written about in a couple hundred words

  • More of a sense in how adultery and divorce worked or at least how its perceived to work

Aulus Gellius:

  • “The husband, he says “who divorces his wife is her judge, as though he were a censor; he has power if she has done something perverse and awful; if she has drunk wine she is punished; if she has done wrong with another man she is condemned to death”

  • “IF you catch your wife in adultery, you can kill her with impunity; she, however, cannot dare to lay a finger on you if you commit adultery, nor is it the law”

  • The Husband has legislative power over the wife

  • You are the only person who gets to decide what happens

  • Cato is talking

  • If she is drinking wine, she should be punished

  • If you have done wrong with another family (aka adultery) the husband can kill her

  • The husband can kill his adultress wife with no consequence, and she cannot do the same thing to him

  • Evidence of women willingly dissolving their own mariage

  • Attitude of society thats not seen in other societies

  • Hear abut the opinions of the other classes rather than regular people

  • Cato the Younger is a notorious traditionalist
    Cato mkaes their political identity on being conservatist, lets go back to the way things were vibes

  • The stories provide us the understanding of attitudes on divorce

Story of Caeser and Wife Pompeia

  • Publius Clodius is a shit disturber and is in love with Caesar’s first wife Pompeia

  • Pompeia is being very closely monitored by Caeser’s mother in law and refuses to let there be any oppportunity for any liasions

  • The women of the noble classes have a ritual performed that is only for women and is at Caesar’s house

  • Publius sneaks into the house as a woman in order to have an affair with Pompeia

  • Publius gets caught and is charged with blasphemy, however Caeser doesn’t know that the reason he was there is because he wanted to sleep with his wife

  • The rumour circulating that Clodius went into the ritual to have an affair with Pompeia is grounds for Caeser to divorce her, because even though it’s a rumour, there is still wonders about whether she actually performed adultery or not, and people will talk

  • The status of Caeser is more important than keeping the marriage together

Marcia and Cato the Younger

  • Provides further attitude regarding divorce

  • Cato is an old-timey conservative

  • Caato marries Marcia who is a very respectable woman, of “reputed excellence”

  • The way that Cato and Marcia’s marriage is perceived, it seems to be perfect however the following story becomes shocking, Plutarch struggling to discuss this

  • HOrtensius wants to marry Cato’s daughter Porcia in order to have children

  • Although Porcia is already married, Cato is the paterfamilias so he can dissolve Porcia’s marraige and have her re-marry Hortensius

  • Cato doesn’t want to discuss his daughter about the proposal because he knows she will refuse because he wouldn’t want to marry a man who is 40, or traded to one of his business associates merely for the sake of children

  • Porcia is known to have a spitfire personality

  • When Cato ultimately refuses Hortensius’ idea, Hortensius suggests that he could marry Cato’s wife instead since she could also bear children

  • Cato says that it’s not about the fact that she doesn’t like his wife because he does, but Cato is willing to go along with Hortensius’ idea

  • Cato explains how he has to talk to Porcia’s paterfamiilias to discuss this, but Hortensius says that if Cato says its ok than it should be fine

  • Cato is even involved within Hortensius’ wedding with his own wife

  • Marcia and Hortensius have a son together in 53 BC

  • Hortensius dies and Marcia inherits his property most likley because the son isn’t old enough to be able to inherit in 50 BC

  • Cato remarries Marcia in 49 BC

  • Gives us an insight to how marriage works in the upper-classes

  • Whether Cato is asking the paterfamilias because of the authority of their marriage, or out of respect is unclear

  • The legal specifications is unknown

  • Cato catches heat for this, especially because Hortensius and Cato are poltiical rivals

  • Caesar calls out Cato for this weird act, and argues the idea that he doesn’t actually truly like his wife, he’s just pimping her out to get Hortensius’ money

  • “You only let Hortensius marry his wife so you can steal his property”

  • Cato’s contemporaries sees this entire situation as weird

  • Caeser is now trying to link up with politicians that can advance his agenda. and he does this via his daughter Julia

  • Julia is betrothed to someone else, but she’ll be more advantageous to Caesar as a wife to Pompey

  • Finsiish up caeser’s story later*

  • Demonstrates the ways of marriages as alliances

  • Daughters are swapped around to create useful allies

  • All of them are equally hypocritical about this idea of marriages

  • All of them are in engaging in very similar approaches

  • What we hear about from the social upper-classes may or may not match up with the majority of Roman society

  • Note: Hortensius and Marcia are in the same social standing

Ara Pacis, South Wall (13 BC)

  • The emperror of Augustus is focused on family, creating on family bonds, and supporting families as an institution

  • Sets up this monument, the Ara Pacis dedicated to family

  • The monument was formed after his family was installed as the imperial family of the succession

  • Monument reflects the family at a religious observance

  • Argumetn about what kind of religious observance this is, and who the family members even are

  • The individual performing the offering ritual is Augustus, followed by priests (flamines) and is curently there with Agrippa (his son in law) who he married his daughter Julius too, folowed with Tiberius (stepson) from one of the marriages and Drusus (his other stepson), Antonia minor (niece) and their children, Antonia Maior (his niece)

  • There is discussion about the little boy, because of why he’s not wearing proper Roman attire unlike the other boys who are

  • By rights, Julia should be with her husband in this procession but he isn’t

  • The children are to be hinted out as future emperors

  • The purpose of the relief is to show off the relationships that are within the imperail household, as a model for the people to emulate especially in the context of religious rituals

  • Although we’re not exactly sure who these people are, we can be sure they’re apart of the imperial household

Augustan Family Law (18 BCE to 9 CE)

  • Imposes upon lots of legislation

  • Increases legitimate marriages and citizen children

  • Firming up the family relationships

  • Establishing how imperial marriage and family is supposed to work under his autocracy

  • Coming out of 30-40 years of Civil War so there is an opportunity to rebuild the ranks of citizen males and elite citizen males since the majority of them were removed. militarily, politically, or in other ways

  • Also encourages re-marriages

  • All the laws are named “julian law” because whoever passes these laws gets to be named after them

  • Stuprum: Sexual assault charges that you can bring to court but not necessarily applied to women who are married

  • Applies to unmarried boys and unmarried women

Lex Julia De Maritandis Ordinibus: Julian law on the order of marriage

  • Requires all citizens to be married

  • Limited inter-class marriages

  • Trying to restrict the idea of concubinage (having a woman for children, and not marrying her)

  • Whether the law attains a specific age threshold is unknown

  • Men of the upper-classes are typically married by 18

  • If you’re a man of the lower classes, you get married later due to military duty

  • Women are married around ages 16-18

Lex Julia De Adulteriis Coercendis: Julian Law on the punishement of adulterers

  • Adultery (cheating on your spouse) is punished by banishment and confiscation of property

  • Both the wife and the man who she had adultery with are punished, separately

  • Capital punishment of adultery - if you catch someone with your wife you call witnesses, and if they can prove she comitted adultery, you have the right to kill her

  • You have the right to take matters into your own hands if you caught them cheating

  • Making not divorcing her is equivalent to pimping out a prostitute which is another criminal charge

  • It’s required that you divorce her if she engaged in an extra-marrital relationship

  • The notion of staying with an adultress wife is going to cost you your reputation

  • A Husband can cheat on your own wife if your wife cheats on you, but if you’re a random unmarried person sleeping with someone’s wife, you broke up a marriage and caused him social problems

  • This law bites Augustus himself, because his own daughter Julia and granddaughter Julia both are guilty of extra-marrital relationships, banished from Rome, and their partners are either punished to death or banished away

Lex Pappia Poppea: Law of Pappius and Poppaeus

  • If you don’t have children, you’ll be fined

  • Targets marriages who haven’t had children yet

  • Vestal virgins are exceptions to this law since they don’t marry anybody

  • A concept of sexual

  • This legislation keeps marriages together, making divorce extremely difficult

  • Legally you can get divorced, but the ability to divorce is a different story

Benefits of Having Children

  • Dispute whether you have to have sons or not

  • Ius Trium liberorum: the right of three (male?) children

  • Men are excused from public duties

  • Women are free of male guardianship and have the ability to inherit property

  • Gain a child-share of whatever estate they are made the will of

  • If you get divorced from your Husband, you will still get to have these benefits

  • Tacedous rains on Augustus’ parade and claims that despite this law exists, it does nothing to promote marriage or children because lots of individuals don’t have kids (the law and societal practices don’t match closely)

Stuprum: Sexual assault charges that you can bring to court but not necessarily applied to women who are married

  • Applies to underage boys and underage women

  • The crime is that you’re ruining someone’s sexual purity

  • Very limited application of this law

  • The crime is being comitted against the person’s future spouse

  • The laws of marriage are excluded from the laws of sexual violence

Women’s Privileges

  • Images of women dressing up, fixing their hair, putting on their jewelrey
    Engage in works outside the home (woolworking)

  • More women start to do more things in contrast to other societies

Prostitution

  • Majority of them are enslaved or formerly enslaved/freed

  • Free-born people do not become prostitues, because its extremely frowned upon to do so

  • Ne serva prostituatur: A slave not to be prostituted

  • Lots of words that surround female prostitutes (Eg. meretrix “earner”, scortum “street-walker hooker”, amica “girlfriend”, puella ”girl”, lupa “she-wolf”

  • Lots of words that surround male prostitutes (Eg. exoletus “matured”)

  • Males typically are never seen as prostitutes unless they’re enslaved

  • You must be registered with city officials to be taxed appropriately

  • Infames: people afflicted with infamia (social rejection/loss of privilege)

  • Lack protection from physical punishment, can’t give evidence in court, and forbidden from marrying respectable men or women

  • As a punishment for adultery, you could be given infamia (reduces your status to a prostitute)

  • Floralia: the festival of Flora that involves exotic dancing and stripping by prostitutes in late April, one for men and women