Complete work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Complete work - Essay Example For the few women who owned businesses, and were married â€Å"in manu† (meaning their husbands were in control of them), the groom together with his family was in charge of all the woman’s possessions. This law prevented women from owning anything they earned with the inclusion of her inheritance and dowry (Kidner, 2014). Women almost had no say in the ‘manus’ marriage and what the husband said was the last word on all the matters. I believe that if the women were given the opportunity to own property in the manus marriage, their families would have benefited more, as there would be two providers. In politics, women could not support their husbands in privacy and not in the public. Their public role was to attend to the traditional activities of household chores. At home they could weave, spin yarn in order to make clothes for their families (Kidner, 2014). If women had a say in politics and even participated in things like voting, most of the empire probl ems would be unheard of and the empire governed in a much better way. Women were also made to think that their role was to sit pretty at home, nurture their children and heed to their husband's decisions. Unlike today's society, fathers chose husbands for their daughters and girls got married at the legal age of 12 years (Kidner, 2014). Fathers allowing their daughters to become of age and then get married to the men of their choice would have resulted in decreasing the number of divorces as well as sexual promiscuity. The male dominance in the Roman Empire was a great influence on how women led their lives. The men were the determinants of what was good or bad for the women. They suppressed the voice of the women who only had an option of doing that which their husbands or fathers demanded from them. Their opinions did not matter and therefore were in no way an influence to the social norms nor the political attributes in the empire. This did not stop the women but they raised high above the norms and laws and managed to change their world. This persuasive paper shows how women changed some of the social factors of the Roman Empire. Women in the Roman Empire may not have had any political office or any voting rights but made great contributions in religion. They did this amidst the fact that they could not stand for their rights. Women always had to serve under a male figure, be it a husband or a father. Men dominated in the social field and politics but the amazing thing is that they were not a great influence on religion. As it was customary, the women took care of the homestead’s shrines, altars, and offering daily prayers. They would perform the necessary rituals to keep the household gods appeased. The Romans believed that these gods, when women appeased them, would live in harmony with the family. The appeased spirits would protect the home and family from any harm and so the women had to pay attention to how well they kept the gods. However, thi s changed over time as women became goddesses and there are coins present in the empire that have images of these goddesses. Helena was the woman who saw it that Christianity was the foundation of the Roman Empire (Winter, 2003). The chauvinistic male society made it clear that only males would assess education. Women, as per