Roman Women Familia wife husband children slaves Paterfamilias

Roman Women

Familia – wife, husband, children, slaves • Paterfamilias *Potestas *Tutor • Iustum conubium – marriage requires consent of Paterfamilias • Manus – marriages both with and without • Dos • Sponsalia

Aims of Marriage • Property & Inheritance issues • Management of household (domus) • Continuity of familia • Ideal of univira • Ideal of concordia

Women’s Participation • • E. g. Oppian Law – Livy Motherhood – Vide Coriolanus, Gracchi Manipulation – Vide Augustus’ wife, Livia Alliances via marriage – Vide Augustus’ sister and Mark Antony

Professional Women – Common Prostitutes • Sources – Syria, Egypt, e. g. • Garb – Tunica and toga (men’s wear) • Locations – certain roadways, around Caelian, near Circus Maximus, e. g. • Taxation & Regulation – must register with Aediles and submit to inspection in brothels

Professional Women – Upper Class • Courtesans/mistresses (e. g. Plautus’ characters) • Doctae Puellae – Cf. Elegaic Poets Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us judge all the rumors of the old men to be worth just one penny! The suns are able to fall and rise: When that brief light has fallen for us, we must sleep a never ending night. Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand more, then another hundred. Then, when we have made many thousands, we will mix them all up so that we don't know, and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out how many kisses we have shared. Catullus, Carmen 5

Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa. Caelius, our Lesbia, that same Lesbia, whom Catullus loved more than himself and more than all his own, now loiters at the cross-roads and in the backstreets ready to toss-off the grandsons of the brave Remus Catullus, Carmen 58

Catullus 85 – Odi et amo… I hate and I love. Wherefore would I do this, perhaps you ask? I do not know. But I feel that it happens and I am tortured.

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle My woman says to me that there is none With whom she'd rather spend her days than I, Should even Jove himself ask her to wed. So she says, but women often lie, What a woman says to a desirous lover, This he ought to write in the wind and rapid water. Catullus, Carmen 70