The vidua

1
The vidua

• the single woman in Roman society

2
Digest 50.16.242.3 (Labeo)

• Labeo says that one calls a widow not only
  someone who was once married but also a woman who
  never had a husband, because the term bereft
  derives from the fact that the person is as it
  were destitute of reason, insane, without sense
  or sanity likewise, the name of vidua derives
  from the fact that she is alone.

3
Vidua (manless)

• Term includes widows, divorced women and women
  who never married
  
• virgo (virgin) applied to young girls before
  marriage
  

4
The vidua in Roman literature and legal sources

• Very few widows appear in Roman literature
• Extremely rare as a social group
• Most single women in literature belong to the
  elite
  
• Often they are examples of good or bad behaviour
  i.e. Cornelia and Clodia
  
• viduae in the legal sources also belong to the
  propertied classes, because most issues in the
  legal sources deal with property of one kind or
  another

5
Reasons?

• Ideology promoted marriage and remarriage for all
  women
  
• (conflicting/coexisting with the ideal of
  univira)
  
• Reflected in generic term vidua
• Single women as a social group were of no
  interest to Roman authors
  

6
viduae in Roman literature

• Often stereotyped
• 3 types of literary presentations
• 1 The virtuous type (univira the most virtuous
  one)
  
• 2 The helpless, unprotected type
• 3 the promiscuous and predatory type

7
The virtuous vidua

• Cornelia, mother of the brothers Gracchi, the
  univira, married only once and as widow was
  devoted to the memory of her husband and the
  upbringing of their children
• Qualities loyalty, chastity, modesty,
• Turia - example of univira (laudatio Turiae in
  LF 168)

8
The vulnerable vidua

• Older, childless, wealthy widow without the
  protection of her husband
  
• Is prey for legacy hunters (captatores)
• topos in literature (satire)
• Apuleius (author of the Golden Ass) was accused
  of having seduced, using magic, the older wealthy
  widow Pudentilla into marrying him.

9
The promiscuous and predatory vidua

• Clodia an unmarried woman who invites complete
  strangers into her domus, leads the life of a
  meretrix (prostitute), is stalking young Caelius
  using her wealth to lure the boy into her trap
  (according to Cicero in the Pro Caelio)
• Sassia accused by Cicero of promiscuity and
  adultery, seduced her daughters husband (Cicero
  in the Pro Cluentio)
  
• both are accused of being sexual predators

10
The widow of Ephesus

• A story the Romans used when they needed an
  illustration of the female character
  
• Message even the most virtuous woman is unable
  to control her sexual desires
  
• Literary stereotypes are used to illustrate and
  reinforce the patriarchal ideology associated
  with womanhood.

11
The reality of widowhood

• Widowhood was not a desirable state for the
  majority of women
  
• even elite women suffered economic setbacks
• Example Papiria, birth mother of Scipio
  Aemilianus she no longer participated in the
  religious procession but chose to stay at home
  rather than publicly reveal her reduced
  circumstances and lose her dignitas

12
The wife of the veteran Ligustinus

• Ligustinus 50 years old, had already served for
  22 years
  
• Had 8 children on tiny farm
• Military service probably main source of income
• How did she manage during these long periods of
  her husbands absence?
  
• Prolonged absence of husbands/fathers common
  experience for the majority of women

13
The farmers widow

• Ancient agriculture was labour intensive
• Difficult to cultivate land without help
• Even difficult for elite
• Example M. Atilius Regulus, cos 257 and 256
  B.C., absent on campaign
  
• Farm 7 iugera (Ligustinus had 1)
• vilicus (farm manager) died, and the hired
  labour took off with the farm equipment
  
• Leaving wife and children without means to work
  the farm on their own.
  
• Senate intervened and Regulus family saved from
  starvation and he from losing senatorial status
  
• Not such happy endings for many peasant farmers
  wives

14
The Peasent farmers wife

• Many forced off the land during the prolonged
  absence of their farmer-soldier-husband or at
  death of husband
  
• Flocked to urban centers, especially Rome where
  they joined the large numbers of urban poor

15
How frequent was widowhood in the Roman World

• Literary sources almost silent about widows,
  especially about poor widows as a social group
  
• Does this mean there were no widows because most
  women would remarry as promoted by ideology?
  
• New research methods since the 1980s social
  sciences, demography, anthropology

16
Ancient widows and demography

• Ancient demography important factor to answer
  question whether there were any widows in ancient
  Rome
  
• Early female age at marriage, late male age at
  marriage
  
• Age gap between women and men often a good
  decade
  
• In the case of the husbands second marriage, the
  gap was even larger (example Pliny the Younger
  and his young wife)
  
• Widowhood at a relatively early age was a reality
  for the majority of Roman women

17
What is our evidence?

• One source the census reports from Roman Egypt,
  used in combination with model life tables used
  by demographers.
  
• Re-evalution of the sensus reports R.S. Bagnall
  and B.W. Frier (1994) The Demography of Roman
  Egypt (Cambridge)
  
• Household declarations, taken every 14 years
  A.D. 11 257
  
• Include property declaration, household size and
  composition, familial status of members, a few
  households show up in a subsequent report
  
• Show us living arrangements of widows

18
Marriage and widowhood in the Census report

• Census data from Roman Egypt
• 80 shown as married around age 30, then
  decline,
  
• Less customary over age of 35 and continues to
  declineonly 40 married in their late forties
  
• Suggests presence of significant number of older
  viduae
  
• Even 20 of young women not married.
• Egypt compared to rest of Empire similar
  demographic pattern thus compatible