Ancient Roman Marriage
From Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul by T. G. Tucker, 1910.
From: 37 C.E. To: 68 C.E.
Location: Rome, Italy
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul by T. G. Tucker, 1910.
We will assume that Silius is a married man, and that his wife is a typical Roman dame worthy of his station in life. Her name shall be Marcia, or, if she possesses more than one, Marcia Sabina. Marriage does not confer upon her the name of her husband, and if she requires further identification in connection with him, she will be referred to as "Silius's Marcia.”
At an earlier date a woman owned but a single name, but already practical convenience and pride of descent had combined to make it desirable that she should bear a second, which might be taken from the family either of her father or of her mother. Thus if Silius and Marcia themselves have a daughter, she may in her turn perhaps be called Silia Bassa, perhaps Silia Marcia.
If now we proceed to describe the position of Marcia in her conjugal and family relations, to speak of her way of life, and to suggest her probable character, it must be understood that the description would by no means necessarily fit every Roman matron. Women are said to be infinitely various, and in this respect the ancient world was precisely like the modem.
And not only has it further to be borne in mind that there were several strata of Roman society, and that city life differed widely from country life; there was also an actual difference in the legal position of a wife, according to the terms upon which she had chosen to enter the state of wedlock. In other words, there were two forms of matrimony.
According to the old-fashioned style a wife passed into the power of the husband; her legal position—though not, of course, her domestic standing—was the same as that of his daughter. Once on a time he had even possessed the right of putting her to death, but at our date that privilege no longer existed. It was enough that she should be subject to his authority. In that position she managed the home and family, and often managed him as well.
How far this time-honoured style of marriage was still maintained among the lower classes of Roman society it is impossible to tell; our information is almost entirely restricted to the higher, or at least the wealthier, orders. It is, however, probable that among the artisans and labourers, where the dowry of a wife cannot have amounted to anything very considerable, this more stringent state of matrimony was the rule.
Paterfamilias was the head and lord of the house, while materfamilias held in practice much the same position as she did in Anglo-Saxon households of two or three generations ago.
Meanwhile among the upper classes, but in no way legally limited to them, an alternative and easier form of marriage had become increasingly popular. It was one which gave to both parties the greatest amount of freedom of which a conjugal union could reasonably allow. The woman did not pass into the power of the man, and, short of actual infidelity, she lived her own life in her own way, although naturally conforming to certain recognised etiquette as a partner in a respectable Roman manage.
If neither affection nor moral suasion could preserve harmony or proper courses, either party might formally repudiate the contract, and, after a short interval, seek better fortune in some other quarter. There was, of course, a public sentiment to be considered; there was family influence; there was the characteristic Roman pride; there was often a fair measure of mutual esteem and even affection; and there were obvious joint interests which made for stability; but beyond these considerations there was nothing to hamper the inclination of either husband or wife.
Yet it is a grave mistake to imagine, because there was much, and sometimes appalling, looseness of life under a Nero, that the race of noble and virtuous Roman matrons—the Cornelias and Valerias and Volumnias—was extinct; and it is equally a mistake to suppose that Rome no longer produced its honourable gentlemen filled with a sense of their responsibilities to family and state.
The satirist should not here, nor elsewhere, be our chief, much less our only, guide. The England of Charles II. is not to be judged in its entirety by the comedies of the time nor by the Memoirs of Grammont. On this matter, however, it will be more convenient to touch in a later paragraph. It will be best to deal first with the system in vogue, and then to consider the sort of woman whom it produced.
It cannot be denied that at this date, though marriage was regarded as the normal and proper condition for men and women who desired to do their duty by the state, and though the wise emperors did everything in their power to encourage it, a very large proportion of the men of the upper classes regarded it as a burden and a vexatious interference with their liberty. It was not necessarily that they had any desire to be vicious, nor indeed would marriage be much of a hindrance to vice; it was that they desired to be free.
The cause of their disinclination was the same as it is sometimes alleged to be now—the increasing demands of women, their increasing unwillingness to bear the natural responsibilities of matrimony, their extravagant expectations, and the impossibility of there being two masters in one house claiming equal authority.
But whereas we recognise that love is a possible adjuster of all the difficulties, it was no tradition of the Romans that marriage should be based on love. With them it very seldom began with love, or even with direct personal choice, but was in most instances entirely a mariage de convenance and arranged for them as such. Even after marriage we are told by a contemporary writer that the proper feeling for a man to entertain for his wife is rational respect, not emotional affection. Experience has shown that the result was too often unsatisfactory.
It is unfortunate that the only satires or criticisms on married life which have come down to us were written by men; one would like to hear what the women might have said, if a woman had ever been a satirist. There is nearly always some basis of truth in a classic satire, but the question is "How much?'' Juvenal belongs to a later generation than that of Nero, but what he says is doubtless equally applicable to that age.
It is therefore interesting to note one or two of his objections to contemporary woman, regarded as a wife. In the first place she is too interfering and even dictatorial.
''What madness is it," he asks of the man whom he supposes himself to be addressing, "that drives you to marry? How can you bear with a tyrannous woman, when there are so many good ropes in the world, when there are high windows to throw yourself out of, or when there is the bridge quite handy?"
"Why should you be made to wear the muzzle?"
"Why take into your house some one who will perhaps shut the door in the face of an old friend whom you have known ever since he was a boy?"
"When you displease her, she weeps, for she keeps tears always ready to fall, but when you try to prevent her from displeasing you, she tells you it was agreed that each should have liberty, and that she is a human being."
He goes on to attack her faithlessness, her extravagance, her superstition, her loquacity, and so forth. Let us by all means discount his fierce invectives; nevertheless we must take them as but a heightened way of putting circumstances which had a real and all too frequent existence, and which encouraged the growing fancy for bachelordom. We shall, however, soon look at a very different picture of domestic relations, and it is only fair to assume that these also were by no means uncommon.
A Roman girl with a reasonable dowry might expect to be married at any age from about 13 to 18. The Italian of the south, like the Greek, ripens early. The legal age was 12; on the other hand to be unmarried at 19 was to be distinctly an old maid. In the northern provinces of the empire maturity was less early, whereas south of the Mediterranean it was even earlier. The legal age for the bridegroom was that at which his father or guardian allowed him to put on the ''toga of the man'' and enter the Forum.
Thus theoretically a Roman youth might become a benedict when about sixteen, and Nero was only at that age when he married his first wife Octavia. Generally speaking, however, if Marcia was as old as 16, Silius would hardly be under 26 or 27.
The marriage, as has been said already, would commonly be a matter of arrangement between families, sometimes effected by their own members, sometimes by an interested friend or some other go-between.
''You ask me," writes Pliny to Mauricus, "to look out for a husband for your niece. There is no need to look far, for I know a man who might seem to have been provided on purpose. His name is Minicius. He is well-connected, and comes from Brescia, which you know to be a good old-fashioned place retaining the simple and modest manners of the country. He is a man of active energy and has held high public office. In appearance he is a gentleman, well-built, and with a wholesome ruddy complexion. His father has ample means, and though perhaps your family is not much concerned on that point, we have to remember that a man's income is one of the first considerations in the eyes, not only of our social system, but of the law.''
A marriage of the full and regular type could only be contracted between free citizens. There were varying degrees of the morganatic about all others, such as marriage with a foreigner or emancipated slave. A non-Roman wife meant that the children were non-Roman. A man of the senatorial order could not marry a freedwoman, if he wished to have the union recognised; also no complete marriage could be contracted with a person labouring under degradation publicly inflicted by the authorities or degraded ipso facto by certain occupations. For this reason the actress on the ''variety" stage could not aspire to become even an acknowledged Roman wife, much less a member of the order which more or less corresponded to our peerage. Nor could a Roman marry a relative within certain prohibited degrees. He might not, in fact, marry any woman whom he already possessed what was called ''the right to kiss."
We are, however, dealing with two persons entirely beyond exception, namely Quintus Silius Bassus and Marcia Sabina. A match has been made between these parties, perhaps several years before the actual marriage can take place, and while the intended bride is a mere child of ten: even the future groom may be but a boy. When the go-between has done his or her work to the satisfaction of both families, there takes place a betrothal ceremony, of which the original purpose was, of course, to bind each party morally to carry out the contract, but which, by the year 64, might mean very little.
In theory the Roman law required the consent of both participants; a father could not absolutely force son or daughter to marry a particular person, nor, indeed, any person at all. But on the other hand, according to the Roman law, neither sons nor daughters were free to act independently of the father's will, nor to possess independent property, so long as the father lived, or until he chose to "emancipate." It naturally follows that paternal pressure was the chief factor in determining a marriage, and only those men or women whose fathers were dead, or who had been formally freed from tutelage, were in a position absolutely to please themselves.
We need not suppose either that sons were always very amenable, or that parents were invariably self-willed and autocratic, but it is obvious that marriages based on mutual attraction must have been extremely few. We will suppose that Silius is his own master, while Marcia has a father or a guardian still alive.
At the betrothal ceremony the friends of both houses are in attendance, a regular form of words is interchanged between Silius and the father of Marcia, a ring is given by the man to his fiance, to be worn on the fourth finger of her left hand, and he adds some other present, most probably some form of that jewellery of which the Roman women were and still are so extraordinarily fond. A feast naturally follows.
You would think this performance sufficiently binding, and binding no doubt it was from a moral point of view, so long as there was reasonably good behaviour on either side, or so long as neither Silius nor Marcia's father was prepared wantonly to flout general opinion or to offend a whole connection by simply changing his mind.
On the other hand, there was no legal compulsion whatever to carry out the contract. The Roman world knew nothing of actions for breach of promise. If either party chose to repudiate the engagement, they were free so to do. In that case they were said to "send back a refusal,”' or to ''send a counter-notice.'' A family dispute, a breath of suspicion, a change of circumstances, and even an improved prospect might be sufficient excuse, or no excuse need be offered at all.
In the present instance, however, no such ugly missive passes between the house of Silius on the Caelian Hill and that of Marcius on the Aventine, and the wedding takes place in due course. It will not be in May nor in early March or June, nor on certain other dates which, for reasons mostly long forgotten, were regarded as inauspicious. It is a social ceremony, and neither state nor priest will have anything to do with sanctioning or blessing it.
The pillars at the sides of the vestibules of both houses are wreathed with leaves and boughs, and the friends and clients of both families proceed in festal array to the house of the bride. If Marcia is very young she has taken her playthings—dolls and the like—and has dedicated them to the household gods as a sign that she now puts away childish things and devotes herself to the serious tasks of life.
She has then been carefully dressed for the occasion. Her hair, however she may have worn it before or may wear it afterwards, is for to-day made up into six plaits or braids, which are wound into a coil on the top of her head. As an initial rite it is parted by means of an instrument resembling a spear, a survival of the time when a bride was a prize of war, and when her long locks were actually divided by a veritable spear in token of her subjection.
Round this coiffure is placed a bridal wreath, made of flowers which she must have gathered with her own hands, and over her head is thrown a veil—more strictly a cloth—of some orange-yellow or flame-coloured material, which does not, however, like the Grecian or Oriental veil, conceal her face. On her feet are low yellow shoes.
Meanwhile the bridegroom arrives, escorted by his friends, and he also wears a festal garland. As with all other important undertakings of Roman life, a professional seer will be in attendance to take care that the auspices are favourable. Peculiar portents, very unpropitious behaviour of nature, a very strange appearance in the entrails of a sacrificial victim, are omens which no properly constituted Roman can afford to overlook.
The auspices being favourable—and there is reason to believe that no undue insistence was laid on their unpropitious aspects—the bride is led into the reception-hall, and the contract of marriage is signed and sealed. That there should be a dowry, and a considerable one, goes without saying.
In some cases it is actually settled on the husband, who is to all intents and purposes purchased by it; but in most it is available for his use only so long as the marriage continues unbroken. For the rest, the wife's property is and remains her own. Her guardian is still her father and not her husband: her legal connection is still with her own family and not with his. She is a Marcia and not a Silia. If the marriage is dissolved, at least without sufficient demonstrable provocation on her part, her father will see that her dower is paid back. To such terms as these the parties affix their names and seals, and a certain number of friends add their signatures as witnesses.
This done, one of the younger married women present takes the bride and leads her across to Silius who holds her right hand in his. Both repeat a prescribed formula of words, and all the company present exclaims ''Good luck to you!'' and offers such other congratulations as seem fit. A wedding-dinner is held, generally, but not necessarily, in the house of the bride, and a wedding-cake, served upon bay-leaves, is cut up and divided among the guests.
It is now evening, and a procession is fonned to bring Marcia home to the house of Silius. In front will march the torchbearers and what we should call ''the band," consisting in these circumstances of a number of persons playing upon the flageolet. Silius goes through a pretence of carrying off Marcia by force—another practice reminiscent of the ancient time when men won their brides by methods similar to those of the Australian aborigine with his waddy.
Both groom and bride are important people, and along the streets there is many a decoration; many a window and doorway is filled with spectators; shouts, not always of the most discreet, are heard from all sides, and loud above all rings the regular Io Talasse—whatever that may have meant, for no man now knows, and almost certainly no one knew then.
In the midst of the procession Marcia, followed by bearers of her spindle and distaff, is being led by two pretty boys, while a third carries a torch; Silius meanwhile is scattering nuts or walnuts, or confetti made like them, to the crowd. Arrived on the Caelian, the bride is once more seized and lifted over the threshold; when inside the hall, Silius presents her with fire and water in token of her common share in the household and its belongings; and she offers prayers to various old-fashioned goddesses who are supposed to preside over the introduction to married life.
If we have given with some particularity the orthodox proceedings of a fashionable wedding, it must again be remembered that not all weddings were fashionable, and that one or other of these details might be omitted as taste or circumstances required. Among the poorer folk there must often have been practically no ceremony at all beyond the ''bringing home." And if there are certain items which appear to us trivial and meaningless, it is probably unfamiliarity which breeds our contempt. Perhaps a far-off generation may wonder how civilised folk in the twentieth century could perform absurd antics with rice and slippers.
Tucker, T. G. Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul. The Macmillan Company, 1910.
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