Women in Ancient Rome

What was the role -- or roles -- of women in ancient Rome? There are a number of sources in the literature that point to a wide variety of interesting and sometimes humiliating roles and positions that women were linked to in Ancient Rome, and this paper reviews several of those.

Women in Ancient Rome -- The Literature

has researched and reported on a number of interesting instances of women's positions and activities in ancient Rome. In his book, McKeown quotes from Cicero's work, In Defense of Murena 27): "Our ancestors wanted all women to be under the control of guardians because of their feeble powers of judgment" (McKeown, 2010, p. 8).

Certainly there was rampant chauvinism in ancient Rome, and any chance that male power figures had to continue on the path of bias against women, they seemed to be able to succeed. However, there...
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