Roman Wives, Roman Widows

by Bruce W Winter

  Again the term `jewellery' epitomised sumptuousness in Roman eyes and could be used by way of an analogy, for Valerius Maximus wrote -

  A Campanian matron who was staying with Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, was showing off her jewels, the most beautiful of that period. Cornelia managed to prolong the conversation until her children got home from school. Then she said, `These are my jewels'.41

  The law of Syracusans had stipulated that `a woman should not wear gold (Xpu(7bs) or a flowery dress (&vOtvcd) or have clothes with purple unless she accepted the name of a public hetaira'.42 Dalby notes, `This Greek phrase, "dresses and gold" is the standard statement of the two accoutrements of a hetaira.'43

  Pearls could be another epitome for sumptuousness. According to Suetonius, `Caesar loved Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom in his first consularship he bought a pearl costing six million sesterces.'44 Martial exaggerated to make his point when he wrote -

  Gellia does not swear by the mystic rites ... but her pearls. These she embraces, these she covers with kisses, these she calls her brothers, these she calls her sisters, these she loves more than her two children. If the poor thing were to lose them, she says she would not live an hour.45

  Pliny records that not only did `women spend more money on their ears with pearl earrings, than on any other part of their person; but that the epitome of extravagance was sewing pearls on shoes and socks. He also notes that the most expensive pearls had brilliance, size, roundness, smoothness, and weight.46 `During the first century, authors frequently used pearls as a symbol of expensive jewellery, and wrote disapprovingly of their use .147

  How women came into possession of what were seen as extravagant accoutrements is not certain. Pliny the Younger wrote a moving letter to Aefulanus Marcellius concerning the grievous loss of the younger daughter of a mutual friend, Fundanus. She was just under fourteen years old, was educated by teachers, was studious, intelligent, well-read, and about to marry `an excellent young man, the date was set and we were all invited'. Pliny notes the irony that `the money that had been delegated to clothes, pearls and gems for the wedding was spent on incense, ointments and spices .148

  If the prospective husband gave the gifts, then Roman law allowed them to be received as such only before marriage, but not after the nuptials.49 The reason for this legal proscription is not certain but may have arisen out of disputes in the cases of divorce concerning any division even though property assets in the first century were not integrated on marriage. Cherry has noted that, whatever the intention, the fact that the law underwent periodic modification indicates that `the prohibition was laid down in response to claims that were both urgently felt and social in origin'.50

  Plutarch commented on the discreet lifestyle of his own wife:

  Your plainness of attire and sober style of living without exception amazed every philosopher who has shared our society and intimacy; neither is there any townsman of ours to whom you do not offer another spectacle - your own simplicity.51

  He sees the virtues that adorn her as `another spectacle' which can be taken as a pejorative comment on another spectacle, i.e., the showiness and brashness of the alternative lifestyle that also paraded itself in public in their city. The specific mention of gold, pearls and `expensive attire' (iµazt6µ 7roXuTEXEI) are indicators of the excesses of the `new' wife (1 Tim. 2:9).

  It also needs to be remembered that the same concerns raised in 2:9-10,15 about clothing, jewellery and their relationship to modesty, are to be found in the letter from Melissa to Clearete on the Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean philosophy's stance on marriage. It stressed -

  a wife's adornment ... with quietness, white and clean in her dress, plain but not costly, simple but not elaborate or excessive. For she must reject garments shot with purple or gold. For these are used by hetairai in soliciting men generally ... the ornament of a wife is her manner and not her dress. And a free and modest wife must appear attractive to her own husband, but not to the man next door, having on her cheeks the blush of modesty rather than of rouge and powder, and a good and noble bearing and decency and modesty rather than gold and emerald. For it is not in expenditure on clothing and looks that the modest woman should express her love of the good but in the management and maintenance of her household.52

  The wearing of modest clothing was both a concern for the philosophical schools and a social convention for respectable married women. It was not only secular authors who adopted `adornment' terminology to describe behaviour rather than clothing. In the second century the Christian writer Clement of Alexandria wrote, `I like old Sparta, which permitted only hetairai to wear flowery dresses and gold ornaments, thus forbidding finery to respectable women and allowing it only to those who plied their trade as prosti- tutes.'53

  Judith Grubbs notes, `Imperial legal sources frequently invoke the no tions of female "modesty" (pudor) and "sexual chastity" (pudicitia), and sometimes their "sense of shame" (verecundia).'54 Augustus had, in keeping with his underpinning of the social fabric by means of laws, also taken upon himself to legislate for distinctions in dress codes including that for the modest wife.55 He proscribed in particular the wearing of the stola by the married woman who was convicted of adultery as well as the prostitute.56 The concerns about physical adornment in i Timothy 2:9a can be understood in the light of this.

  Mention was made not only of the adornment of virtues and modest dress (contrasted with braided hair, gold, pearls and extravagant apparel), `but (&XXa) [of] that which is proper (apt Est yuvca~iv) for a woman who professes godliness through good deeds' (2:10) - the nature of that godliness is explained with the addition of `faith, love and holiness' (2:15). While the context in which these virtues were to be encouraged is not specified, it certainly would have included her own household, the neglect of which was the subject of concern in relation to the `new' women.57 Given the contrast between the lifestyle epitomised by extravagance and the strong adversative stressing godliness expressed by good deeds, there is, by implication, a reference to the inappropriate and antithetical actions of the new breed of women.

  This section has discussed the significance of two dress codes (2:9-11). The first was apparel characterised by gold and pearls and extravagant clothing that signalled to others a sexually lax lifestyle. The second did not describe an actual dress code but rather used the concept of adornment as a metaphor for the virtues of a wife who was not only godly but also adorned her life with good works. She would have been represented visually by the modest dress of the first-century married woman that comprised a full-length garment with a discreet neckline. The way that wives dressed in public sent clear signals to men, thereby presenting themselves as either modest or promiscuous women. Just as philosophical schools were concerned about young wives entering marriage, so too a similar concern was expressed in the Pauline community about how Christian wives operated in marriage.

  Up to this point it has been assumed that the reference is to a married woman and not just a woman. Is that assumption justified, given that a single word in Koine Greek serves either status for a female on the basis that the context will readily determine the specific referent? It is not the indulged prepuberty girls who wed at a very young age who are the subject of discussion in this passage, but the married women, whether young or old, and the way they dressed.58 Furthermore, the reference to Christian wives giving birth to children (2:15), along with the introductory and concluding reference to modesty (2:9, i5b), gives secure grounds for arguing that the reference is to married women. It is in the light of the two ways in which a first-century married woman might live (2:9-10) that verses 11-12 need to be examined.

  Does the enigmatic statement in i Timothy 2:15 - `yet she shall be saved through the childbearing' (acoO1 ETat bs bta Tqq TEKvoyoviac) - reflect the aversion to having children by rich or progressive wives? The use of preventative measures often put them in physical danger, and sometimes led to death.

  The term TEKVOyovia (2:15) has been the subje
ct of intense discussion.59 Different words were used throughout the Greek corpus in connection with the role of childbearing/rearing. This is not untypical of the Greek language as Liddell and Scott record: `I procreate children' (TEKv6co), `the begetting of children' (TEKVO6nOpia), `the making of children' into adults (TEKVOTrOt a). The `rearing of children' (TEKVOTpO4ia), the cognate of which (STEKVO- Tp64>1(yEV) occurs in i Timothy 5:1o, would rule out the possibility that the reference is to raising children.60 Furthermore, in the late first century B.C. the Stoic Arius Didymus used this term when he wrote of the wise man's need to write down what would benefit his fellow men. This included `having sexual intercourse both for marriage and for the bearing of children (Kal To GvyKaza(3aivEty Kai Eic yaµov Kai Eic TEKVOyoviav), both for his own and his country's sake'.61 The term refers to pregnancy.

  What is the meaning of the phrase `through the childbearing' (bta TfS TEKVOyoviac)? Kostenberger has provided philological analysis of `saving through' and concludes that it `should be understood as a reference to the woman's escape or preservation from a danger by means of childbearing'. He further argues that `She (i.e., the woman) escapes (or is preserved; gnomic future) [from Satan] by way of procreation (i.e., having a family).'62 The use of the article in `the childbearing' together with the preposition bta with the genitive suggests that it is through the process of childbearing that she is preserved. The use of this construction indicates `throughout' or `through the course of' and is well attested in Classical and Koine Greek, and confirms that the phrase should be rendered `through the childbearing, i.e., the pregnancy'.63

  The avoidance of pregnancy and the terminating of it by an abortion meant that however dangerous and life-threatening they were, it was possible to do so. The use of different forms of contraception in the first century is well documented. The use of abortion and contraceptives could be fatal.64 Even Ovid speaks graphically against abortion - he may have lost a mistress through it.

  She who first began the practice of tearing out her tender progeny deserved to die in her own warfare. Can it be that, to be free of the flaws of stretchmarks, you have to scatter the tragic sands of carnage? Why will you subject your womb to the weapons of abortion and give dread poisons to the unborn? The tigress lurking in Armenia does no such thing, nor does the lioness dare destroy her young. Yet tender girls do so - though not with impunity; often she who kills what is in her womb dies herself.6s

  Abortion took many lives, in spite of the skills of doctors whom the rich could afford to employ.66 The early-second-century gynaecologist from Ephesus, Soranus, refused to undertake abortions, citing in support the dictum of Hippocrates, `I will give no one an abortion .167

  It was Juvenal who observed -

  Childbirth hardly ever occurs in a gold-embroidered bed since abortionists have such skills and so many potions, and can bring about the death of children in the womb.68

  The termination of a pregnancy also drew Seneca's censure as he reminded his mother, `nor have you crushed the hope of children that were being nurtured in your body'.69

  In spite of the idealising of the family in the first century, Seneca noted that some women in his day, his mother excepted, tried to hide their pregnancy, such were their disdain of pregnancy and the preoccupation with the shape of their body (and, it must be added, men felt the same about their body).

  In some cases those who had children sought to avoid nursing them by employing a wet nurse. When Favorinus (c. A.D. 85-155) visited the home of a senatorial family to congratulate the father on the birth of a child, he challenged the attitude of the grandmother.

  `I have no doubt that she will nurse the baby with her own milk.' But when the girl's mother said that her daughter should be spared this and nurses provided - so as not to add the burdensome and difficult task of nursing to the pains of childbirth. He said, `I pray you, woman, let her be completely the mother of her own child. What sort of half-baked, unnatural kind of mother bears a child and then sends it away?' . . . they desert their newborn and send them away to be fed by others and thus cut or at least loosen the bond and that joining of mind and love by which nature links parents to their children .... 71

  Such were the sentiments on childbearing and nursing which were harboured by some women in the first century that ostensibly motivated Augustus to legislate so intrusively on marriage and inheritance. (See pp. 52-54.)

  These facts, together with the grammatical construction of i Timothy 2:i5a, suggest that this text indicates that the Christian wife would be preserved by continuing in her pregnant condition (and thereby bearing a child) instead of terminating her pregnancy. This interpretation would also make sense of the conditional clause that follows -if she remains in faith, love and holiness'together with the stress on self-control at the end of the discussion. The results of the decoding of the dress code (2:9-11) and the known reluctance and refusal of some married women to bear children (2:15) may be a further help towards understanding the Sitz im Leben of i Timothy 2:11-12 to be considered next.

  It was possible for daughters who were from the ranks of the elite and the sub-elite to have an education in the first century. While sources are scarce, Hemelrijk, in her work on educated women, undertakes a chronological survey and notes the steep increase in evidence of this in the first and second centuries A.D.' Wives might also be exposed to some form of education from their husbands.

  The Stoics argued that the education of daughters was essential because of the moral element in education related to the learning, and the embracing, of the cardinal virtues and the importance of avoiding the cardinal vices. This applied equally to daughters as to sons. In the case of the former, one of the virtues was modesty although they also learnt of the cardinal virtues for men as they were deemed appropriate for women in some instances. (See pp. 6668.) The need for an education similar to that of sons was not related to a future public career but to the bringing up of children and the complex management of households.

  The instruction of children was undertaken in the houses of the rich by tutors.72 Lucian provides evidence of professional teachers selling their services to rich householders. While he mocks them and denounces their soft living, he was later forced to retract some of his comments when he himself entered the employ of a large household.73 Teachers were also meant to provide intellectual stimulus to the family in the setting of dinners and appropriate and learned conversation at the symposia.74 Daughters also participated in this form of home schooling in enlightened households. While Lucian lampooned those who taught men in the household, he also parodied that activity among wealthy women.

  After all, one could perhaps put up with the conduct of men. But the women! That is another thing women are keen about - to have educated men living in their households on a salary and following their litters. They count it an embellishment if they are said to be cultured, to have an interest in philosophy and to write songs that are hardly inferior to Sappho's. To that end they trail hired rhetoricians and grammarians and philosophers, and listen to their lectures - when? It is ludicrous! - either while their toilet is being made and their hair dressed, or at dinner; at other times they are too busy! And often while the philosopher is delivering a discourse, the maid comes in and hands her a note from her lover, so that the lecture on chastity is kept waiting while she writes a reply to her lover; she then hurries back to hear it.75

  Hemelrijk comments on the basis of this extract: 'Lucian's mockery would make no sense if it did not reflect to some degree the actual practice among the upper-class women of his time .176

  Treggiari, in summarising concepts of marriage, concludes with a comment on the submission of a wife to her husband in the early period of the Empire over against the Republican period. `Rome's particular (though not entirely original) contribution to the ideology of marriage was the ideal of the wife's faithfulness to one man, the eternity of the bond, and the partnership of the couple. Subordination of the wife, I would argue, was not essential or important by the time of Cicero [io
6-43 B.C.].' This is a surprising conclusion. We are dealing with the demise of the image of the subordination of wives by the end of the Roman Republic.77

  In any case, i Timothy 2:11-12 refers not to a wife's submissiveness to her husband but rather to how the godly wife should respond to Christian in struction. This is conveyed by means of both negative and positive injunctions. The sentence reads literally, `the wife in silence must learn in all subordination' (yuv>7 Ev r ouxfa 1avOav6Tw sv 7r6cr l i5 roray>7). Had it meant to indicate that she was in a `subordinate position' then the Greek would have been sv bmozay>7, as, for example, in a third-century-A.D. papyrus.78 The repeating of `in' (tv) without any use of `and' (Kaf) indicates that the silence was to be exercised during instruction. After the statement `and (66) to teach I do not permit nor to atOEvrsiv over a man' comes the strong adversative clause again with the emphasis on quietness, `but [she is] to be in silence' (aXX' swat £v ~GvXfa) (2:12b).

  Musonius Rufus argued that philosophical instruction would be misplaced for a wife `if the study that shows the respect of the greatest good (µfytGTov &yaObv) makes them bold (Opct wia).'79 For all his defending the education of daughters, his comment reveals his concerns about `new' wives abandoning their households for philosophical symposia and the competitive nature of conversations with sophists and others at the banquet.

  Women who associate with philosophers are bound to be arrogant for the most part and presumptuous, in that abandoning their own households and turning to the company of men they practice speeches, talk like sophists, and analyze syllogisms, when they ought to be sitting at home spin- ning.80