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Univira: An Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Majorie Lightman  and
William Zeisel
Majorie Lightman
Affiliation:
Ms. Lightman and Mr. Zeisel are both members ofThe Institute for Research in History, New York, N.Y.
William Zeisel
Affiliation:
Ms. Lightman and Mr. Zeisel are both members ofThe Institute for Research in History, New York, N.Y.
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Extract

During its long history Roman society absorbed innumerable changes without losing its sense of continuity. The present study examines this process of change and continuity in one social and religious epithet of womanly virtue. It concentrates on the history of univira, an epithet that appears in Latin literature and funerary inscriptions from early pagan to Christian Rome.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 19 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1977

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References

1. Scholarship on univira is not extensive. In Matronalia (Brussels: Berchem, 1963),Google Scholar a work about women in early Roman religion, Jean Gagé investigated the roles of univirae in archaic cults. Frey, J. B., “Signification des termes ‘monandros’ et ‘univirae,’” Recherches de Science Religeuse 20 (1930): 48–60,Google Scholar collected all the literary and inscriptional evidence for the later pagan and early Christian periods (roughly the first five centuries AD.) Humbert, Michel, Le Remariage à Rome: Etude d'histoire juridique et Sociale (Milan: Dott A. Dioffrè Editore, 1972), pp. 330–331 and 345 ff.Google Scholar has amplified those aspects of Frey's and Gage's material which support the thesis that the Christian ideal of single marriage was a continuum from the pagan concept of univira. Pomeroy, Sarah, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (New York: Schocken Books 1975), pp. 161, 204 and 206–208,Google Scholar discusses the relationship of univira to some ancient Roman religious cults.

2. Tertullian, , De exhortatione castitatis 13 and De monogamia 17.4,Google Scholar lists the ceremonies. The exact nature of the role of the univira in ancient cults remains unclear: Gagé, pp. 59–60; Humbert, pp. 51–55. For the univira's sense of propriety and good fortune see Humbert, p. 55.

3. Livy 34.7.12; translation based on that of Sage, E. in the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961).Google Scholar The phrase “supportive and submissive” is that of Hallett, Judith R., “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy,” Arethusa 6 (1973): 103–24, at p. 103.Google Scholar

4. Gagé, , Matronalia, pp. 120–122.Google Scholar

5. This is not to imply every univira was married with manus, but rather that she grew up in the house of her father, was betrothed, and moved directly to the house of her husband, without ever having lived free of male authority. Tertullian, , De exhortatione castitatis 13,Google Scholar remarks on the magical aspect of the univira pronuba.

6. Butler, H. E. and Barber, E. A., The Elegies of Propertius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), pp. 378–379.Google Scholar

7. On the Roman ideal of marriage see Friedländer, Ludwig, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, vol. 1, trans. Magnus, L. (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1907), pp. 233, 265.Google Scholar

8. Propertius 4.11.32.

9. Ibid., 61–62.

10. Ibid., 36.

11. On the laudatio funebris and its conventional aspects see DrStuart, R., Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (New York: Biblo and Tanner, 1967), p. 209.Google Scholar

12. Gagé, , Matronalia, pp. 120–122.Google Scholar On legal aspects of the woman's position in marriage see Schulz, F., Classical Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 109–137, 162–202Google Scholar; and Corbett, Percy E., The Roman Law of Marriage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), passim.Google Scholar

13. Hallett, , “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy,” pp. 119–120Google Scholar; Williams, Gordon, “Some Aspects of Roman Marriage Ceremonies and Ideals,” Journal of Roman Studies,” 48 (1958): 16–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. The pagan epitaphs on which univira appears include the following: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin: Wide Gruyter, 1863–1975)Google Scholar (hereafter CIL) 3: 3573, 5: 7763, 6: 5162, 25392, 26268, 14771, 31711, 13299, 12405; 7: 7384, 14963; 8: 19470, 11294.

15. Catullus 111, trans. Meyers, R. and Ormsby, R., Catullus (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1970).Google Scholar

16. CIL 6. 5162.

17. On Catullus and his audience see Luck, Georg, The Latin Love Elegy (London: Methuen & Co., 1959), pp. 9–16.Google Scholar

18. For a list of epitaphs see n. 14, above.

19. CIL 6. 31711.

20. Ibid., 6. 13303.

21. Ibid., 5. 7763.

22. Humbert, Le Remariage à Rome, p. 68,Google Scholar discusses five epitaphs of the imperial period which mention a pagan vidua-univira. He observes that such references are exceptional and that for a pagan woman the greater virtue was, “…rester fidèle à son époux vivant qu'à son souvenir.”

23. Gagé, , Matronalia, pp. 120–122.Google Scholar On the frequence of divorce during the late Republic and early Principate see Friedländer, vol. I, pp. 242–243.

24. The so-called Laudatio Turiae (=Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 8393) ed. and trans. Durry, Marcel, Éloge Funèbre d'une Matrone Romaine (Paris: Soiété d Edition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1950), 1.27 (p. 9).Google Scholar

25. Friedländer, , Roman Life and Manners, vol. 1, pp. 17, 135 and 145,Google Scholar discusses the rising level of affluence among many Romans during the late Republic. The extension of Roman citizenship, with attendant rights of intermarriage (conubium), is discussed by Sherwin-White, A. N. “Citizenship, Roman,” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).Google Scholar

26. Several Christian epitaphs contain univira used in its descriptive aspect: Diehl, E., Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin: Weidmann, 1961), 404, 1581, 4287, 4302, 4723.Google Scholar

27. Tertullian, , Ad uxorem 2.1,Google Scholartrans. LeSaint, W., Tertullian: Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage (Westminster, Md., 1951), p. 23.Google Scholar

28. Diehl, , Inscriptiones Latinae, 1581.Google Scholar

29. Frey, , “Signification,” p. 58.Google Scholar A good introduction to partistic thought on widowhood is the short essay by Ambrose, St., De Viduis, Migne, J.-P., ed., Patrologia Latina (Paris: Gamier Fratres, 1844–1881) 16: 249–278.Google Scholar

30. Jerome, , Epistula 22.15,Google Scholar called widowhood the “second rank of propriety” (… secundum pudicitiae gradum …) after lifelong virginity.

31. Diehl, , Inscriptiones Latinae, 2142a.Google Scholar Frey, p. 58, remarks on the importance placed on the widow rearing her children. On CIL 10. 7990, from south Italy, the Christian Valeria mentioned her children on her husband's tombstone: VALERIA VIDUA/CUM IV LIBERIS/DULCISSIMO ANTONINO/ INNOCENTI AUR(elio) VIRO/SUO PATRIAE BENEMERENTI/QUI BIXIT L ANNIS.

32. 2 Tim 5:16, 3, 5, 9, 10.

33. Epistula 22: 16,Google Scholartrans. Wright, F., The Select Letters of St. Jerome (London, 1933).Google Scholar

34. CIL 5: 3419.Google Scholar

35. Tertullian, , Ad Uxorem 1. 7,Google Scholar trans. LeSaint.

36. Ibid., 1: 6.

37. The Seneca fragments have been collected and edited by Bickel, Ernest, Diatribe in Senecae philosophi fragmenta, vol. 1, Fragmenta de Matrimonio (Leipzig, 1915).Google Scholar

38. Bickel, , Fragmenta 26, 27, 28 (pp. 387–388).Google Scholar

39. Humbert, , Le Remariage à Rome pp. 60–61,Google Scholar and Frey, Signification,” passim, both assume Jerome's viewpoint.

40. Frey, , “Signification,” p. 58.Google Scholar