Powerless women in Roman Republic, a historical survey

Fundamina: a Journal of Legal History, 2006

Extracted from text ... In pre-classical Roman law, when adult Roman women either fell under the manus of their husbands or under strict tutela mulierum, their commercial participation was very limited. However, this position changed radically in classical and post-classical Roman law as the marriage cum manu was replaced by free marriage and the tutela mulierum became an institution of mere form, without any notable content. However, many classicists and feminist scholars have an overly negative perception of the legal position of Roman women.

2018

​ Philipps Universität- Marburg Alte Geschichte; Roman Women: Gender-History as Subject and Methodology of Historical Science - This article gives us the status of the women in the period of Roman Empire. The laws and rules for the community but most of all them that not with the inclusion of women status, they were just for the people except women. The role of the women in marriage, the role in the daily life, the role in the family as a mother and as a wife, the role in the jobs or did they have any job and the last one as a general topic that how was the situtaiton of the women in the Roman society. - Bu makalede, Roma İmparatorluğu döneminde kadınların statüsünü göreceğiz. Topluluğun yasaları ve kuralları, ancak hepsinin ötesinde, kadının statüsü dahil olmayacak şekilde, sadece kadınlar dışındaki insanlar içindi daha genel olarak. Kadınların evlenmedeki rolü, günlük yaşamdaki rolü, ailede anne ve eş olarak rolü, işlerindeki rolleri neydi ya da herhangi bir işte çalışma durumu söz konusu muydu ve son olarak genel Roma toplumunda kadınların durumu nasıldı?

La Construction sociale du sujet exclu (IV-XI s.), 2019

THE STRENGTH OF ROMAN WOMEN THROUGH COINS AND A FEMINIST CRITIQUE FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT, 2024

This work aims to expose the public image of Roman women such as Fulvia, Octavia, Livia, Agrippina Major and Agrippina Minor, including the late Republic and early Empire (84 BC - 59 AD), through coin samples and written sources that exemplify their lives. The aim is to illustrate how these women improved their public images through duties linked to the imperial family, the Patronage, religion, and imperial propaganda. The written sources gave visions of values and showed social relations, the principles of property, individual rights and their duties in Roman society. These sources also confirmed that Roman women of this time were embedded in a hierarchy of power marked by boasting male rule. In the written sources, they were described in familiar environments, but with exceptions and malcontents, forming an opposition between the public and private worlds. The material sources, the coins with the portraits of these women, composed a formidable working tool, as they justified positions and consolidated powers within an aristocratic context of competition. As a movable monument, such objects promoted a wide audience, even far from the elite. They demonstrated that elite women achieved "apparent" prominence, building a social life that led to a certain political openness, which contributed to their being important authors of Rome's history. Women's changes at that time may have ensured a social change in all categories, especially in cultural constructions and political performances. This fact led Roman society to mould itself into a tangle of circumstances, in which the divisions of male and female became intertwined, demonstrating a social and gender complexity. However, the purpose of this paper was to explain, through iconographic analysis, what these objects wanted to communicate politically and in an identity manner. That said, the question was raised about the power and place of action of the feminine, since the “sexual habitus” could have marked the values between the genders. Both the material culture and the written sources analysed together were essential to prove this problematic, since the literature made the gender relations of the emperors and their women very explicit. Material culture, by demonstrating male power, also highlighted female power. In this way, the major importance of this work is the invitation to a reflection of the perception of the reality of the present, for an analytical approach in relation to the improved conditions of the Women's Studies of Antiquity, with a purpose capable of managing conscience and coherence of current feminine factors in contrast to the existence of a variety and similarity about the woman of the past.

Coré Ferrer-Calatayud, 2018

The objective of this paper is to investigate the involvement that women in Republican Rome could have had in matters alleged to be enjoyed exclusively by men, concerns such as politics and finances, with the ulterior aim of revealing actual social realities, formerly ignored and disregarded. Previous studies focused largely on women's domesticity, fertility, and the preservation of a stainless behavior as a result of the exempla outlined by ancient authors such as Livy, Vergil, Plutarch, and Appian, male writers who lived on the edge of time between the precepts of the Republic and the brand-new outset of the Principate. By using an innovative approach based on Judith Butler's performativity, we will be able to explore Roman women's identities and their closeness to an actual but traditionally obscured power. Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo no es otro que el de investigar la implicación que las mujeres de la Roma republicana podrían haber tenido en asuntos que, supuestamente, solo eran disfrutados por los hombres, como son la política o las finanzas, con la finalidad de des-cubrir realidades sociales auténticas que habrían sido ignoradas hasta

Transactions of the American Philological Association, 2011

This article explores the evidence for women and gender in the Forum Romanum, investigating (primarily through literary sources) women's use of this space, and (primarily archaeologically) historical women's signification there by images and structures. The illustrated analysis proceeds chronologically from the Republic to the early third century c.e. Authors report women's presence in the civic Forum as abnormal, even transgressive through the Julio-Claudian period. The paucity of women's depictions and patronage here until the second century c.e. echoes constructs of Livy, Seneca the Younger, Tacitus, and others. The mid-imperial Forum, however, marks changes in Roman ideology as well as topography.

In this PhD thesis, the issue of the development of Roman citizenship for women in the late Republic and the early Empire is explored. Roman women as citizens are often marginalised, both in ancient sources and in definitions of citizenship in modern-day research. By looking at the legal construction of Roman citizenship, and the social consequences of this construction, in this study it is shown not only that women were citizens, but that the definitions of Roman citizenship in some ways crossed gender boundaries. Roman citizenship was based on the position of individual Romans within the familia, the Roman family group. It was this familia which could both limit and enlarge the bargaining power of Roman women; in particular, the position of Roman women who were sui iuris, the head of their own familia, was stronger than that of many Roman men. This study not only offers a novel interpretation of the way women functioned as Roman citizens, it also shows that Romans used a different organizing principle for their citizens from the ones we are familiar with in later Western history.

Classical Review, 2007

2023

During the reign of Emperor Claudius, a senatusconsultum from 52 AD contained provision concerning free women sustaining a relationship with the slave of another. In accordance with these provisions should she fail to abandon the relationship after the denouncement of the slave's master, will become the slave of the master denouncing her deed. The senatusconsultum also contains rules regarding the status of the children born from such a relationship. Some scholars tend to label this decree of the Roman Senate a "gender issue" despite the obvious anachronism of the statement. This paper aims at unfolding the sustainability of such a label. In the scope of this endeavour the common and generally known phrases, levitas animi and infirmitas sexus are also examined. Connected to tutela feminarum, the locutions levitas animi and infirmitas sexus turn out to contribute to a common, but mistaken opinion how women were regarded in ancient Roman society. Placed properly amongst primary sources, it turns out that they reflect an attitude stemming from Greek philosophy, and therefore not common throughout the entire history of Rome. As for the approach of male and female roles in Roman society, mores maiorum plays an undoubtedly important part in determining the actual content of social customs. There's also a strong endeavour to protect women in certain situations, and this is where tutela mulierum is supposedly originates from. Secondary literature does not rank SC Claudianum among "gender issues". In addition, the term "gender issue" as such covers a modern concept, and therefore anachronistic in Roman law research, as a consequence its use is at least doubtful.