Roman Marriage From a Husband's Perspective

What a Roman Man Might Have Hoped for and Feared in a Marriage

Jun 27, 2009

With rivalry in ancient Rome so fierce, a good wife proved a roman politician's most reliable asset and his most valuable political resource.

When speaking of a traditional marriage from any era, one tends to think automatically of the wife. As she would find herself on the inferior side of an unequal partnership, it is easy to dismiss this a just yet another example of the misogynistic oppression of women evident throughout time. The argument is a strong one and almost certainly true but, be that as it may, we often underestimate how invaluable a wife, especially a good one, was to a roman man. What is often overlooked is the essential questioning into why women in ancient Rome were subject to such enormous demands.

Producing an Heir

For an upper-class man in Republican Rome it was his non-negotiable duty to ensure the continuation of his lineage. Republican men devoted the great majority of their lives to improving their family’s name, therefore each man was anxious to both advance the reputation and provide an heir to, in turn, carry on the good work. Needless to say, this heir had to be a son. A husband’s greatest fear was a wife who was barren or one who seemed cursed to only be able to produce female offspring. Fortunately for him, divorce was the norm, especially in the Patrician class, and easy to achieve as marriage was neither a legal nor a religious procedure. It was therefore common for a couple to divorce due to sterility.

Political Influence

Second to a Roman wife’s primary function of bearing children, was acting the perfect socialite. A wife from an equal or more influential family would have been ideal as political connections were actively sought after. The duty of a wife would have been to then facilitate and expand these relations to help her husband, hence charm, grace and self-awareness were qualities valued highly in a woman. The words “She was charming in speech, yet pleasant and proper in manner” can be found on the 2nd century BC tomb of Claudia. An anti-social wife would have been a husband’s political nightmare as wives were expected and often relied upon to further his career, usually by excessively flattering those who needed to be. As elections were held every year, campaigning, and hence a wife’s duty, virtually never ended whether he was promoting himself or a friend.

Household Affairs

Exemplary training in running a household was, of course, an essential element in a model wife. An upper-class Republican man was kept extremely busy by politics, social climbing, seeing clients if he had any, going to war and quite often running the businesses from which he earned his wealth. This meant that he spent a large amount of time away from home and therefore required someone trustworthy and able to keep things running smoothly in his absence. The affairs of the house were often left entirely in the wife’s hands with her duties including educating the children, cleaning, managing the servants, the livestock, the gardens and maintaining acquaintances with useful members of society. When the husband was in residence, his wife was in charge of entertainment. She had to know how to decorate, arrange the furniture suitably, organise the servants and prepare a full meal for what was quite often a large party of people. A husband could hardly afford such a liability as a disorganised or non-committal wife.

Conduct

A flawless wife needed to be educated in the basics of what was fashionable, for example in the Greek language, but not too well educated. In the same way she should be modestly talented in singing, music and the arts but not too talented. An aptitude for entertainment and intellectual conversation was not becoming in a lady of the upper-class as it showed an independence which was unsettling to the man to whom she belonged. Courage, intelligence and strength were only commendable when they came with selflessness so as a result that kind of confidence was closely associated with working girls, a potentially career damaging link for a husband.

The Cost of a Wife

Despite having received a dowry at the outset, and in the upper circles this would have been sizable, husbands would have soon discovered that wives are expensive. Aside from usual ‘living’ expenses, manus marriages, in which the husband gains the legal status equivalent to the woman’s father, often proved undesirable for the husband as his wife would gain a financial claim on his estate. Towards the end of the republic manus marriages became less fashionable and women, when married, did not leave the gens of her original family and still belonged legally to her father. This meant, however, that while losing the financial obligations, a husband also lost the absolute power over his wife.

A Perfect Wife

Every now and then a husband finds he has struck gold. For example Pliny the Younger was thrilled that his very young third wife had “taken an interest in literature” out of affection for him, learned some of his writings by heart as well as putting them to music and shared in his anxiety in court cases.

With competition so high in the aristocratic classes, everything a man owned, and a wife was part of his property, was designed to lend itself to his image. One weak link in the mail could risk setting off balance all the political contacts he had cultivated. Fortunately, more often than not, wives filled their designated positions successfully it is therefore unsurprising to find evidence that husbands felt a great deal of pride and love towards their wives. As nothing official was written by women the only points of view we have are from men and the majority seem favourable. What comes across from these sources is the strength of the anxiety felt by Republican men at the prospect of finding a wife followed by the inexpressible relief upon discovering that she is priceless.

Jo-Ann Shelton - As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History- Oxford University Press, 1998

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