The picture which Jerome
draws of the Roman women is indeed repulsive, and Professor Dill would
gladly believe it to be exaggerated, but, nevertheless, he thinks that
"if the priesthood, with its enormous influence, was so corrupt, it is
only probable that it debased the sex which is always most under
clerical influence."

But far graver charges cling to the memories of the Roman women. Crime
darkened every household. The Roman lady was cruel and impure. She
delighted in the blood of gladiators and in illicit love. Roman law at
this time permitted women to hold and to control large estates, and it
became a fad for these patrician ladies to marry poor men, so that they
might have their husbands within their power. All sorts of alliances
could then be formed, and if their husbands remonstrated, they, holding
the purse strings, were able to say: "If you don't like it you can
leave." A profligate himself, the husband usually kept his counsel, and
as a reward, dwelt in a palace. "When the Roman matrons became the equal
and voluntary companions of their lords," says Gibbon, "a new
jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage, like other partnerships,
might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the associates." I have
but touched the fringe of a veil I will not lift; but it is easy to
understand why those women who cherished noble sentiments welcomed the
monastic life as a pathway of escape from scenes and customs from which
their better natures recoiled in horror.

Secondly, the fine quality of mercy that distinguishes woman's character
deserves recognition. Even though she retired to a convent, she could
not become so forgetful of her fellow creatures as her male companions.
From the very beginning we observe that she was more unselfish in her
asceticism than they. It is true the monk forsook all, and to that
extent was self-sacrificing, but in his desire for his own salvation, he
was prone to neglect every one else. The monk's ministrations were too
often confined to those who came to him, but the nun went forth to heal
the diseased and to bind up the broken-hearted. As soon as she embraced
the monastic life we read of hospitals. The desire for salvation drove
man into the desert; a Christ-like mercy and divine sympathy kept his
sister by the couch of pain.

Lastly, a word remains to be said touching the question of marriage. At
first, the nun sometimes entered the marriage state, and, of course,
left the convent; but