Roman Women
The Romans believed that women were the weaker sex. Families mourned when a baby girl was born, and sometimes girls were exposed - left out in the cold to die - if the father was displeased. Often daughters were hated by their fathers.
Doctors thought that a woman’s womb moved about inside her body, from her stomach to her legs, and caused hysteria, fainting and fits. However highborn a woman was, she was not a citizen and could not vote. Women had few legal rights, and were dependent on their fathers or husbands. This left them in much the same position as the slaves, who also could not vote and were dependent on their masters.
Yet a woman slave, in turn, had a harder life than a male slave. Women slaves could be sold to breed child slaves to add to the master’s property. The master could sleep with her at will and, indeed, was the only one with a legal right to do so, unless he gave her permission to marry. Or she might work in a brothel or a mine. One......
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Approximate Word Count: 1200
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |