explain the position of women and type of family in roman society ?
Answers
Freeborn women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives),[2] but could not vote or hold political office.[3] Because of their limited public role, women are named less frequently than men byRoman historians. But while Roman women held no direct political power, those from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence through private negotiations.[4] Exceptional women who left an undeniable mark on history range from Lucretia and Claudia Quinta, whose stories took on mythic significance; fierce Republican-era women such as Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and Fulvia, who commanded an army and issued coins bearing her image; women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, most prominently Livia (58 BC-AD 29), who contributed to the formation of Imperial mores; and the empress Helena (c.250-330 AD), a driving force in promoting Christianity.[5]
As is the case with male members of society, elite women and their politically significant deeds eclipse those of lower status in the historical record. Inscriptions and especially epitaphsdocument the names of a wide range of women throughout the Roman Empire, but often tell little else about them. Some vivid snapshots of daily life are preserved in Latin literary genressuch as comedy, satire, and poetry, particularly the poems of Catullus and Ovid, which offer glimpses of women in Roman dining rooms and boudoirs, at sporting and theatrical events, shopping, putting on makeup, practicing magic, worrying about pregnancy — all, however,through male eyes.[6] The published letters of Cicero, for instance, reveal informally how the self-proclaimed great man interacted on the domestic front with his wife Terentia and daughterTullia, as his speeches demonstrate through disparagement the various ways Roman women could enjoy a free-spirited sexual and social life.[7]
The one major public role reserved solely for women was in the sphere of religion: the priestly office of the Vestals. Freed of any obligation to marry or have children, the Vestals devoted themselves to the study and correct observance of rituals which were deemed necessary for the security and survival of Rome but which could not be performed by the male colleges of priests.[8]
The exact role and status of women in the Roman world, and indeed in most ancient societies, has often been obscured by the biases of both ancient male writers and 19-20th century CE male scholars, a situation only relatively recently redressed by modern scholarship which has sought to more objectively assess women's status, rights, duties, representation in the arts, and daily lives; and all this from almost exclusively male source material dealing with a male-dominated Roman world