![\"roman](\"http:\/\/baidun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/display-961-222x300.jpg\")
Modern scholars\u00a0have sought to assess women’s status, rights, duties, representation in the arts, and daily lives from a more objective standpoint than provided in the past. In earlier years, much of the scholars were male and were biased in a way that reflected their male-dominated world. The Ancient History Encyclopedia Online has given us some valuable insight to this topic.<\/p>\n
IN MYTHOLOGY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n When it came to Mythology,\u00a0the Romans had a more neutral approach where humanity, and not specifically the male, was created by the gods from earth and water.\u00a0Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, does not specify whether the first human was a man or a woman. At least in a physical sense, men and women were not regarded as belonging to a different species as in the Greek world, a view often reiterated in Roman medical treatises.<\/p>\n IN THE FAMILY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Roman family was male-dominated, typically headed by the most senior male figure.\u00a0Roman women were closely identified with their “perceived” role in society. Their duty was\u00a0looking after the home and to nurture a family, in particular, to bear legitimate children. Women conceived at the young age of\u00a0around\u00a020 years old – sometimes even younger, in order to ensure the woman had no sexual history which might embarrass the future husband.\u00a0Within the family, women would work on handicrafts, watch after the slaveforce, and upper class females had the right to\u00a0study academic subjects such as literature and philosophy.<\/p>\n IN FINANCE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Women were legally obliged to have a nominated male family member act in their interests.\u00a0However, in actual practice, families did\u00a0not always follow these rulings.\u00a0Just as with many other matters, there is evidence of women running their own financial affairs, owning businesses, running estates etc., especially in cases where the principal male of the family had died on military campaign.<\/p>\n IN SOCIETY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Roman women had a very limited role in public life. They could not attend, speak in, or vote at political assemblies and they could not hold any position of political responsibility. However, there were always exceptions in practice. Even so, women who were given political power and stance\u00a0are very often represented in Roman literature as motivated by such negative emotions as spite and jealousy.\u00a0Roman women did have a public life because they had to work for a living. Typical jobs undertaken by such women were in agriculture, markets, crafts, as midwives and as wet-nurses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Modern scholars\u00a0have sought to assess women’s status, rights, duties, representation in the arts, and daily lives from a more objective standpoint than provided in the past. In earlier years, much of the scholars were male and were biased in a way that reflected their male-dominated world. The Ancient History Encyclopedia Online has given us some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[20,21,19],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roman-antiquities","category-world-history","tag-roman-antiquity","tag-roman-history","tag-world-history-2"],"yoast_head":"\n