console and
caress. In the eye of the gods if not of the law she was his equal when
not his superior. By virtue of the law he could divorce her at will, he
could kill her if she so much as presumed to drink wine. By virtue of her
supremacy five hundred and twenty years passed before a divorce
occurred.[15]

The supremacy was otherwise facilitated. The atrium, unlike the gynaeceum,
was not a remote and inaccessible apartment, it was the living-room, the
sanctuary of the household gods, a common hall to which friends were
admitted, visitors came, and where the matron presided. From the moment
when, in accordance with the ceremonies of marriage, her hair--in memory
of the Sabines--parted by a javelin's point, an iron ring--symbol of
eternity--on her fourth finger, the wedding bread eaten, her purchase
money paid, and she, lifted over the threshold of the atrium, uttered the
sacramental words--Ubi tu Caius, ibi ego Caia--from that moment, legally
_in manum viri_, actually she became mistress of whatever her husband
possessed, she became his associate, his partner, sharing with him the
administration of the patrimony, governing the household, the slaves,
Caius himself.

Said Cato: "Everywhere else women are ruled by men, but we who rule all
men, are ruled by women." They had done so from the first. The treatment
of the Sabines was clearly violent in addition to being mythical. But,
even in legend, these young women were not deserted as were the Ariadnes
and Medeas of Greece. They became Roman matrons, as such circled with
respect. Later, Egeria instituted with symbolic nymphs a veritable worship
of women. Thereafter feminine prerogatives developed from the theory and
practice of marriage itself. In theory, marriage was an association for
the pursuit of things human and divine.[16] In practice, it was the fusion
of two lives--a fusion manifestly incomplete if all were not held in
common. Community of goods means equality. From equality to superiority
there is but a step. The matron took it. She became supreme as already she
was patrician.

Between patrician and plebeian there was an abyss too wide for marriage to
bridge. Such a union would have been regarded as abnormal. The plebeian
did not at first dare to conceive of such a thing. When later he protested
against his helotry it was in silence. He but vacated the city where the
earth threatened to open beneath him and where his lost gods brooded
inimical still. Ultimatel