Domestic abuse in Ancient Rome: Status and vulnerability

This blog is targeting 2nd-year University students

 

In this blog I aim to explore domestic abuse faced by women in Ancient Rome, I will be examining and comparing the differentiating treatment and experiences between Elite women in contrast to slave women with the aim of highlighting the distinct lack of safeguarding of vulnerable communities in Ancient Rome by using established Laws involving domestic abuse against women, societal views on the act and how they differed depending on class as well as philosophical thinking into the act of domestic abuse with varying degrees of acceptance or discouragement depending on class.

To take a closer look into the laws and rights of an elite roman woman in Ancient Rome, first, we need to think about paterfamilias this term referred to the oldest man who functioned as the head of a Roman family and exercised autocratic authority over his extended family. As a result of this role it allowed them to psychologically abuse their wife if they chose to expose an unwanted baby daughter (Chrystal, 2017). One of the 12 tables (a set of Roman laws established in 451 and 450 BCE) Gave Roman women some protection against abusive husbands via trinoctium “the power of her husband as if she was unwilling to meet, to be absent from it every year trinoctio of each year, and in the way in the use of would be interrupted ” (Gaius, I.111). This passage explains that if a woman did not come under the power of her husband, absenting herself from him annually for 3 nights interrupted the marriage process essentially meaning that if married Sine Manus, this meant that the woman remained under her father’s. Societal views on domestic abuse against elite Roman women were mostly against the act, Cato the Elder said that the man that struck his wife/child laid violent hands on the holiest of objects. However, there was certain ground within Roman society that was acceptable for husbands to beat their wives for example it was illegal for women to drink wine. Case in point the wife of Egnatius Mecenius was slain by her husband with a stick due to drinking out of a vat of wine. Another example of accepted abuse towards elite women was in the case of an affair if a husband found his wife flagrante, they were entitled to kill the unfaithful party (Chrystal, 2017).

So, after looking more in-depth into the treatment and experiences of elite Roman women how did slave women and freedwomen fair in comparison. In comparison slave women were given horrendous treatment and had little to no rights to shield them from such abuse, slaves could be beaten publicly unlike their elite counterparts and even tortured and killed for any offence with minimal interference (Riess and Fagan, 2016). Should they desire to seek rectification of their abuse only a powerful protector could bring their case to court, in most cases involving noncitizen sex labourers without the protection of a patron they often suffered from abuse without justice. Slave women had to live in a constant state of fear as female slaves were forced unwillingly into servicing their masters trapped and unable to resist (Knapp, 2014). Furthermore, slave women also experienced abuse at the hands of other slaves within their master’s household. In addition to the threat of rape, slave women could also be tortured by their households or even a neighbouring household for the suspicion of theft Riess writes that “The slave girls of Latin elegy are stabbed my their mistress for minor hairdressing issues and even speaking out of turn” (Riess and Fagan, 2016). The societal views on domestic abuse against slave women differed with abuse against women of lower social standing being acceptable.

In conclusion, Elite women had a clear advantage in avoiding, battling and preventing domestic abuse within their household, nevertheless the picture painted by the laws and attitudes towards such an act against elite women is a bleak one with their husbands still remaining in more or less in control over their life or death. On the other hand however, the horrors faced by slave women are not to be taken lightly, at a clear disadvantage slave women simply did not stand much of a chance in preventing the almost daily torture at the hands of their owners as well as other slaves within that household. The differentiation in treatment, laws and societal views concerning elite women in comparison to slave women can give a historian whiplash and has been the focus of many academic writers as they are often overlooked.

Bibliography
Chrystal, P., 2017. When in Rome: Social Life in Ancient Rome. Fonthill Media.

Gaius. and Zulueta, F., 1967. The Institutes of Gaius. Oxford, the Clarendon Press: Clarendon Press.

Riess, W. and Fagan, G., 2016. The Topography of Violence in The Greco-Roman World. University of Michigan Press.

Knapp, R., 2014. Invisible Romans: Prostitutes, Outlaws, Slaves, Gladiators, Ordinary Men and Women the Romans That History Forgot. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press.