Women in Ancient Rome

What life was like for the fairer sex in the Eternal City.

Ancient Roman history tends to be something of a sausage party. But, behind the scenes, women played an indispensable role in the life and culture of ancient Rome. 

Nearly everything we know about ancient Roman women comes from sources written by men. We have almost no direct sources from the women themselves. There are only rare bits of evidence, such as inscriptions in buildings. This is made worse by the fact that scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries were mostly men who didn’t explore the topic much. Only recently has modern scholarship delved into the fascinating lives of Rome’s female population. 

Most women in ancient Rome were restricted in their ability to participate in public life. They were usually under the legal jurisdiction of their male relatives. They often married young, sometimes before puberty, but most women married around age 20. All girls were expected to marry. The virtues of pudor (“modesty”) and castitas (“chastity”) were expected of Roman women. 

Women’s rights

Rome was a deeply patriarchal society. This means that women didn’t have many independent rights. Women were under the legal jurisdiction of their fathers, husbands, or else a legally appointed guardian. Roman women were passed from the control of one man to another, usually from father to husband. She was always subordinate. 

Despite having inferior legal status, however, Roman mothers still played an indispensable role in Roman society. They were expected to be strong figures within the household, and play a crucial role in the upbringing and education of children. They were expected to maintain the smooth, day-to-day running of the house. Above all, the Roman wife was expected to be self-effacing. She was to provide support for, but no challenge to, the pater familias. 

In poor families, by contrast, women generally worked hard, just like the men. For most women, their lives were not much different than their male counterparts. Although legally, women were still regarded with inferior status. Women couldn’t vote in elections or run for political office. With few exceptions, women were generally excluded from Rome’s civic life. They generally did not participate in speech-making and debates. Lower-class women had even less rights than their upper-class counterparts. Prostitutes and waitresses were not able to sue for rape. The rape of slaves was seen merely as property damage. 

Mobility 

Upper-class women rarely left their household. The key figure in their lives was the mother, who supervised whatever education they received. Most aristocratic women were married off in their mid-teens. A woman who was still unmarried by age 20 was considered a deviant. Later on, Augustus actually passed laws that imposed penalties on unmarried women above age 20. 

Education

There are a handful of examples of highly educated Roman women. But on the whole, especially during the Early and Middle Republics, most women were not given much formal education. Female knowledge was viewed with suspicion. The focus of a girl’s education was to learn how to spin thread and weave clothing—in other words, domestic skills.

Jobs

A common job for Roman women was producing textiles. There was an expectation that the garments of a Roman family would be produced by its female members. For rich women, this role took the form of supervising the female slaves of the household. Nevertheless, all Roman women were trained in early girlhood to use the spindle in the loom, and would have regularly practiced those skills. 

Women were generally excluded from positions of political authority. Some women were able to exert influence through their husbands, but this was not common. Lower-class women had more of a public life, because they had to work for living. Common jobs included agriculture, markets, crafts, midwives, and wet nurses. Some places allowed women to attend theater, public spectacles such as gladiator games, and Rome’s public baths. Some women actually fought in the gladiator games of the Colosseum. 

Some women distinguished themselves as writers. Sulpicia is Rome’s only female poet, whose work survives from the 1st century BC. She wrote love poems to her boyfriend, a youth she called Cerinthus. 

Homemaking

The main job for any Roman woman was to have children. She was expected to attend to the home, and work on crafts. Upper-class women sometimes enjoyed philosophy and literature in their free time. Elite women outsourced their motherly duties to nurses and servant caregivers. 

Property rights

According to Roman law, property was to be divided up equally among male and female children. However, in practice, many Roman families favored their male offspring. But there is evidence of Roman women owning estates and businesses. This often occurred when their husbands died off on military campaigns. 

Bachelorettes

In Rome’s highly stratified society, married and unmarried women were expected to dress differently. The stola, a long tunic, was worn by married women underneath an overdress. It was not worn by prostitutes, slaves, or unmarried children. Prostitutes wore togas, not stolas. Wearing a toga or a stola indicated whether a woman was “respectable” in the eyes of Roman society. 

Many Romans, even the enlightened Cicero, felt that women lacked the judgment to manage their own property and affairs. However, Roman law did maintain that a wife’s property, except her dowry, was kept separate from the husband. This meant that women, in the case of a divorce, were allowed to take back their property. 

Divorces were easy to get in ancient Rome. But if the marriage produced any children, the father always got custody. In the later Roman Empire, especially after Constantine, divorce became much more difficult, especially for women. 

Naming conventions 

In ancient Rome, women’s names were not given as much attention as their male counterparts. A Roman male had three names: the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. The women of a given family were all simply referred to by the feminized version of the family’s name. When a Roman woman married, she would either keep her maiden name or adopt her husband’s name. 

Religion

Women did enjoy special privileges in one area: religion. Certain rituals involving female deities had to be performed by women. Men could not do them. There were several women-only priesthoods. Technically, the Vestal Virgins were seen as having “given up” their gender. 

Women served as priestesses in Rome’s imperial cult. They performed rites and divination. Both upper and lower class women took part in household rituals that praised their family ancestors, the lares and penates, the guardians of the household. Women participated in mystery cults, which were female-only. One such was the cult of Bona Dea, which allowed women to get drunk on wine, perform sacrifices, and participate in other rites normally forbidden to women. 

The famous Vestal Virgins were associated with the cult of Bona Dea. They were priestesses of the Roman deity Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Four to six priestesses attended the sacred fire at the Temple of Vesta at any given time. Vestal Virgins were chosen between the ages of 6 to 10. If chosen, a woman had to chaste for at least 30 years. These women were removed their families, and became legally independent. Many of these virgins became extremely wealthy. After the 30 years, the virgins were permitted to marry, but most did not. Severe punishments were meted out for women who violated their oaths. This included beatings, burial alive, or having molten lead poured down one’s throat. 

Roman religion was much less misogynistic than Greek mythology. Ovid’s Metamorphoses does not specify whether the first human was male or female. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not regard women as being a separate species. 

Politics

A few women managed to leverage power in ancient Rome, especially at the upper levels. Agrippina was Nero’s mother, who successfully got her son installed to Rome’s imperial throne. Julia Domna was the wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, and the mother of Emperor Caracella. Julia was a patron of the arts. She was a priestess in Syria. She travelled to Britain. After her son became emperor, she received the title “Mother of the Senate and of the Fatherland.”