Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

16. Women and Property EEE

A s in most (probably all) ancient societies, women had no part in public law. They could not vote or hold public office. For essentially the same reason (if less obviously so), they could not serve as witnesses to formal legal acts or rep resent others in court. In private law, however, they had sur prisingly broad rights. In fact, it has been noted that women were in many respects freer under Roman law than under some “modern” European systems of only a couple of centu ries ago. At any rate, it is generally fair to say that the private law presumed that men and women were to be treated in the same way, unless specific exception was made in some specific circumstance. Women could own property, be held liable for crimes, make contracts, and go to court to sue and be sued. They could inherit property, which (as we noted in the previ ous chapter) was of great financial importance. This chapter will treat the circumstances in which women were treated dif ferently. It will also mention a few areas of the law that have particular effect on women, but that in the end are driven more by the idea of “family” than by any views of gender. (Note also that a woman with a living father had no property rights, just

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