Difficulties that Roman women lived
Introduction
As is known, gender has been a decisive element to determine the life of any human, but this is not only important, but also must be interpreted jointly to the fact of belonging to one or another social class, age or ethnicity. Hence, women constitute a heterogeneous and diverse group of which there is talk of a minority (women belonging to privileged classes) due to the greater information disposition. Roman law studies are equivalent to a powerful source of information about this topic.
Developing
Regarding the legal and social situation within the Roman institutional framework. The problems increase when studies from other sources are also added such as that of Egyptian papyri, where we observe legal contracts or legal visions, literary, whose developments are marked by the conventions of the different genres and, therefore, tend to deform reality in one way or another. It should also be noted that archaeological sources and material culture focused on domestic, religious and funeral spaces.
Offers the possibility of moving forward in the construction of the history of women. We must be aware of the existence of this bias in the sources about women in the Roman world and critically face reading in these texts. The female voice is missing in the speeches of great historians and writers, who have projected for centuries an image of idealized femininity that cannot and should not be confused with the voice of Roman women. Social, public and political scope: Regarding the social sphere, the woman had to follow social norms imposed on their gender.
Since childhood they were educated to follow this social canon. It is found as a virtue for which you would even have to take your life if you do not fulfill it, and it is that of sexual chastity. Tito Livo tells us the best known example of this virtue with the example of Lucrecia, her rape and, subsequently, her suicide to the shout of: “No woman will be self-realized with the example of Lucrecia to survive her own dishonor!”, Thus providing the exaltation of the evidence that a woman must die before being unfaithful to her husband.
This story was told from an early age to the girls to be part of their lives that lesson. We find great references constantly in epitaphs, even as unique virtus, which shows us its importance (IV, 12770, cit. Muñoz García de Iturrospe). It is punished the breach of it severely, even being a reason for the breakdown of the Pax Deorum and cause of misfortune for the city. The exaltation of this value is the cause of the need to ensure the legitimate offspring of man together with the transition of political rights and property within the family.
Another recurring requirement of women was to take care of loom. As recurrence we have, for the amount of bones, needles and loom weights found in the atriums of Roman homes, an important mastery in hilar and knitting. In addition, religious piety, frugality and devotion to family also played a value. Differences between the life of a man and a woman within their same status. The gender equals an association of values and connotations that must be followed as if they were guidelines in the life of ancient Rome, so that behaviors and attitudes were not the same as men to women.
In them, values such as excellence or virtus, associated with the good citizen, with courage and courage; While in it the values of sexual chastity (casitas), the modest. All this to look for the perfect female, reflected in the model to follow of the Roman midwife, which in legal terms, is a free Roman woman who has married a Roman citizen (Iustum matrimonium) with which he can engender future citizens Romans.
The life of a married man would be subject to fulfill domestic management and devotion to her husband who also holds the legal power of her wife (Patria Potesas). A wife should not have emotions of her, but she must share the seriousness, joy and melancholy of her husband. We find how the woman belonging to the elite does not restrict her actions only to the domestic sphere.
Although not in the same way as man, she enjoyed a level of autonomy, which allowed them to openly exercise a relative political role in public space. This public space was an excellent means for the transmission of the female dignites model through sculpture, particularly since the imperial era, since during the Republic, that privilege was reserved for the male figure (celebration military victories, political achievements, etc.) It was a kind of "reward" to the Virilia Officia, the policy and war where it was only for men from the Republican era until the arrival of Augustus to power,
conclusion
Where the door of female representations opened, first with a political character to move on to an imitation of the iconographic model emanating from the women of the Imperial House. These female sculptures share the same ambitions as their male companions: show their adhesion to the regime and promote themselves or with their families within their communities. Historically, they have always been required that they fulfill a role, and this is to have offspring. These children would never be really his own, but from the father. They gave birth only to the descendants of the male.
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