what rights did women have during the Pax Romana in Rome?

Question

what rights did women have during the Pax Romana in Rome?

Answer 1

I understand You mean during the "first half of the Roman Empire": from Octavian August to the end of Antonin Dynasty.



Well I guess, women situation (rights) was better than during the Roman Republic (especially the beginning). Of course it depended on the social position, and the wealth of the woman (I have read once that a marriage a poor man with a wealthy woman might be a bad thing for that man , because the husband always had to pay "oneris matrimonii"(burden of the marriage).

About family: marriages and testimony. Generaly there were 3 ways to get married: confarreatio (just for very aristocratic families), coemptio, usus and there was a mariage sine manu. There was also contuberium (slaves) and concubinatus. For more information see:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/marriage/a/RomanMarriage.htm

The kind of marriage was an important thing in testimony, because in confarreatio, coemptio, usus the woman become an agnatic daughter of her husband and an agnatic sister of their children.



Legal Conditions Affecting Elite Women



1. Guardianship (L&F 112):

1. patria potestas - life or death power

2. tutelage - guardianship of female after father's death

3. gradual lessening of formal supervision

1. jus liberorum - exemption from tutelage (Augustus)

2. abolition of automatic guardianship by male relatives

3. abolition of guardianship as institution

2. Marriage:

1. *** manu marriage - wife passes into husband's family

1. assumes legal status of his child

2. dowry passes into husband's keeping

2. sine manu marriage - wife remains member of natal family

1. natal family retains interest in dowry - if divorce or death occurs, it must be repaid (one-fifth retained for each child)

2. wife and children belong to different families - consequences for inheritance

3. demographic imbalances

1. legal obligation to raise only one daughter

2. intermarriage among free and freed, except for senators

4. marriage ages: 12 for girls, 14 for boys

5. sequential marriage and the ideal of the univira

3. Augustan Marriage Laws (18 B.C. - 9 A.D., L&F 120-23, 127-28): aimed at controlling adultery, promoting childbearing, and regulating marriage between social ranks

1. penalities for adulterous wife and lover

2. incentives to produce children

3. restrictions on marriage for senatorial class

4. Inheritance:

1. daughters' right to inherit equally recognized in law

2. increasing wealth of women from 2nd century B.C. onward

3. property confiscations and Oppian Law (L&F 173)

4. Voconian Law of 169 B.C. - regulated female inheritance

* - right of woman to inherit from senatorial class man, even if sole child

* - could not be executrix, only legatee

* - could not receive more than the chief heir took

* - possibly to discourage woman receiving both dowry and bequest





Some of the women had really high position. The finest example is (as I think): Drusilla Livia Augusta, the second wife of Octavian August. For more information about the Roman Empresses, see:

http://www.crystalinks.com/romewomen.html



I would like to recommend You also several links about the women in Roman Empire:



http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1530267.htm

http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/life/

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/romanempire/

http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/public/content/special/Megan_Randall/Childbirth_and_Midwifery_i.htm

http://www.lamp.ac.uk/~noy/roman11.htm

Answer 2

Pax Romana (peace of Rome)









Here is a partial answer.....I have to say that with what I found, it depended upon Citizenship vs emmigrant vs slave



Voting- in ancient Rome were free-born male & female citizens who belonged by birth or assignment to one of the twelve tribes allowed to cast votes in the comitium (voting place).



Citizenship - in Rome was granted to free-born males born to Roman citizen fathers. The idea of citizenship was all-inclusive meaning that women too were also allowed to vote and had similar, but somewhat lesser rights than men. ( In Roman society women were respected and dignified, but they were still considered to be somewhat lesser to men and a women's place was at home.)



search the following for more information



http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-romanlegal.shtml