on of the equality of the sexes as a principle of the
code of equity. The patriarchal subordination of women fell into complete
discredit, and this continued until, in the days of Justinian, under the
influence of Christianity, the position of women began to suffer.[284] In
the best days the older forms of Roman marriage gave place to a form
(apparently old but not hitherto considered reputable) which amounted in
law to a temporary deposit of the woman by her family. She was independent
of her husband (more especially as she came to him with her own dowry) and
only nominally dependent on her family. Marriage was a private contract,
accompanied by a religious ceremony if desired, and being a contract it
could be dissolved, for any reason, in the presence of competent
witnesses and with due legal forms, after the advice of the family council
had been taken. Consent was the essence of this marriage and no shame,
therefore, attached to its dissolution. Nor had it any evil effect either
on the happiness or the morals of Roman women.[285] Such a system is
obviously more in harmony with modern civilized feeling than any system
that has ever been set up in Christendom.

In Rome, also, it is clear that this system was not a mere legal invention
but the natural outgrowth of an enlightened public feeling in favor of the
equality of men and women, often even in the field of sexual morality.
Plautus, who makes the old slave Syra ask why there is not the same law in
this respect for the husband as for the wife,[286] had preceded the legist
Ulpian who wrote: "It seems to be very unjust that a man demands chastity
of his wife while he himself shows no example of it."[287] Such demands
lie deeper than social legislation, but the fact that these questions
presented themselves to typical Roman men indicates the general attitude
towards women. In the final stage of Roman society the bond of the
patriarchal system so far as women were concerned dwindled to a mere
thread binding them to their fathers and leaving them quite free face to
face with their husbands. "The Roman matron of the Empire," says Hobhouse,
"was more fully her own mistress than the married woman of any earlier
civilization, with the possible exception of a certain period of Egyptian
history, and, it must be added, than the wife of any later civilization
down to our own generation."[288]

On the strength of the statements of two satirical writers,
Juvenal and Tacitu