The far-reaching results of the various schools of philosophy which rose in Greece during the Periclean age will be noted in this chapter. That the principles involved in this philosophy may not have been formulated by the hetairai of Athens is doubtless true, yet that the inception and development of these principles were largely due to the freedom of these gifted women seems probable, especially when we remember the conditions under which this philosophy arose.  
A glance at the principles involved in the Stoic philosophy will show its thoroughly altruistic character. The sum of its tenets was to “live according to nature’s laws,” to subordinate one’s self to the welfare of one’s family, one’s country, and the entire race, and to “rise above the gross indulgences and pleasures of the vulgar” to higher laws of thought and action; it taught that to be just, and to live according to the dictates of reason rather than to be governed by the promptings of blind passion and the desire of the appetites, should be not only the duty but the highest pleasure of348 mankind. Possibly some of the minor precepts of the Stoic philosophy were absurd; no doubt in their desire for reform, its founders set up a canon of conduct which was severe and impracticable; but its fundamental principles, the subjection of the animal in man to the reasoning faculties, as applied to future Roman law, Roman civilization, and Roman character, served to produce specimens of manhood which the women of all subsequent ages should delight to honour. So long as virtue is applauded and moral greatness is exalted, the enactments of the Roman jurisconsults in the interest of women, prior to, and during the time of the Antonine C?sars, will stand forth throughout the ages as the one single movement, during thousands of years, toward the removal of the legal disabilities of women. When we remember that the Stoic philosophy took root and flourished during an age of unparalleled profligacy which was stimulated and encouraged by the example of the most opulent and luxurious personages among the Greeks, and at a time when licentiousness had for centuries been sanctioned by religion and upheld by laws made by the men of Greece, it is quite evident that some potent influence, which had hitherto been unfelt, had been in operation to produce it.
 
In order to understand the influence which the Stoic philosophy exerted on civilization, and especially on the legal position of women, we must first understand its effect upon Roman law. An349 inquiry into the changes which had been wrought in Roman jurisprudence at the time of the Antonine C?sars, by engrafting upon it the underlying principles contained in the Stoic philosophy, discloses the fact that the emancipation of women had been practically accomplished in Rome.
 
Perhaps there is no subject which at the present time possesses greater interest for inquiring women than that concerning the status of their sex under the older Roman law; for, by an understanding of woman’s legal status, as fixed under this institution at a time when man had gained the summit of his power over her, is furnished a key whereby may be unlocked many of the mysteries surrounding the still extant social and legal disabilities of women.
 
The thoroughly egoistic character of the principles underlying the older Roman law has been noticed in a former portion of this work. We have seen that in Rome the father, who was the sole representative of the family, had drawn to himself not only all the authority over the child which under the earlier gentile organization of society had been acknowledged as belonging exclusively to the mother, but, ignoring individual liberty, and all the principles of personal freedom which had been established under the matriarchal system, had proclaimed himself absolute sovereign over all within the agnatic bond. The divine oracle of Apollo, which had enunciated the doctrine that the soul of the child is derived from the350 father, had at the same time declared that the mother has to do only with furnishing the body. Thus the father, as Creator, became the household god; his authority, as we have seen, being supreme even to the exercise of the power of life and death over its members.
 
Under ancient law, the father, as head of the household, really constituted the family, the remaining members being merely ciphers which, from the peculiar position in which they were placed, were without significance except as vassals under the strictest tutelage of their master. Under this august system of father-worship, males as well as females had become enslaved. The bondage of men, however, differed somewhat from the “perpetual tutelage of women,” in the fact that they themselves in time might become heads of families, and in that imperial position to assume the same authority and dominion over others as had been exercised over them. Women, however, could never become heads of families, and therefore could never hope to be free. So long as they remained single they were under the tutelage of their blood-relations, or were subject to the authority of some individual whom the father, before his death, might choose to appoint over them as guardian. Thus arose the law known as the Perpetual Tutelage of Women. Upon this subject Sir Henry Maine says:
 
Ancient law subordinates the woman to her blood-relations, while a prime phenomenon of modern juris351prudence has been her subordination to her husband. The history of the change is remarkable. It begins far back in the annals of Rome. Anciently, there were three modes in which marriage might be contracted according to Roman usage, one involving a religious solemnity, the other two the observance of certain secular formalities. By the religious marriage of Confarreation; by the higher form of civil marriage, which was called Coemption; and by the lower form, which was termed Usus, the husband acquired a number of rights over the person and property of his wife, which were on the whole in excess of such as are conferred on him in any system of modern jurisprudence. But in what capacity did he acquire them? Not as Husband, but as Father. By the Confarreation, Coemption, and Usus, the woman passed in manum viri—that is, in law she became the Daughter of her husband. She was included in his Patria Potestas. She incurred all the liabilities springing out of it while it subsisted, and surviving it when it had expired. All her property became absolutely his and she was retained in tutelage after his death to the guardian whom he had appointed by will.255
 
On this subject of male supremacy in the family Mr. Maine remarks:
 
The foundation of Agnation is not the marriage of Father and Mother, but the authority of the Father. All persons are Agnatically bound together who are under the same Paternal Power, or who have been under it, or who might have been under it if their352 lineal ancestor had lived long enough to exercise his empire.256
 
Under this bond would be united all the children belonging to the head of the household and all the descendants of the sons, but not of the daughters; the daughters’ children under this manner of reckoning descent belonged to the families of their respective fathers. Although under this system a man might adopt a stranger into his family, and invest him with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereunto, no descendant of a daughter could claim any of the rights of agnation. Under Hindu law, which is saturated with the primitive notions of family dependency, in the genealogies, the names of women are omitted altogether. We are assured by Mr. Maine that the exclusion of women from governmental functions certainly had its origin in agnation. Thus it is seen that paternity had come to involve the idea of a supreme ruler or potentate, and that the overshadowing predominance of the male over the female had paved the way to the future worship of one all-powerful male deity.
 
We have seen that the principles involved in the Stoic philosophy were justice, equality, and the subjection of the appetites to the dictates of reason and conscience. So soon as Greece was subjugated by Rome, the ablest of the Romans espoused the principles embodied in this philo353sophy, and notably among those who became interested in its tenets were the Roman lawyers, who began immediately to reconstruct the civil law upon the principles underlying this system.
 
That it is only through a return to the archaic and natural principles of justice and right living, the acknowledgment of which at once establishes the proper relations of the sexes, that women may ever hope to be free, is plain to all those who have given attention to this subject. This fact was evidently observed by the Roman lawyers who, through the persistency with which only those labour who are engaged in establishing a principle, had so far succeeded in overcoming the prejudice against sex as to have established a legal code wherein was practically recognized the equality of women with men.
 
Doubtless the Romans were as tenacious of their ancient customs, prejudices, and long-established privileges as have been the people of any other country; hence we may perhaps form a faint idea of the obstacles which presented themselves, and of the devices which must have been resorted to by Roman jurists in an endeavour to remove the existing legal restrictions upon the liberties of women.
 
Mr. Maine informs us that Gaius, a celebrated jurist who lived in the age of the Antonine C?sars, devoted an entire volume to descriptions of the ingenious expedients devised by Roman lawyers to evade the letter of the ancient law, and that354 it was through this source that the fact finally became known that in the age of the Antonine C?sars the legal disabilities of women had been practically annulled.
 
From the facts at hand it is observed that the object of the Roman lawyers was to frame an edictal jurisprudence which should supersede the older law, or which in effect should annul its power. We are informed that the pr?tor was not only the chief equity judge, but that he was also the common-law magistrate. So soon, therefore, as the edict had passed through the necessary formalities enabling it to become a law, the pr?tor’s court began to apply it in place, or by the side of the civil law, “which was directly or indirectly repealed without any express enactment of legislation.” In reference to the legal status of women in the age of the Antonine C?sars, Henry Maine observes: “Led by their theory of natural law, the jurisconsults had at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their code of equity.”257
 
Although the seed, sown in Greece during the Periclean age when conveyed to Rome, produced a golden harvest, the fact will doubtless be remembered that the Roman lawyers had but just completed their work of establishing the legal equality of the sexes when the agencies which for years had been at work to destroy the Empire culminated; and finally, when Christianity, in355 the person of Constantine ascended the throne, the results of four centuries of civilization were destroyed, or for more than sixteen hundred years were practically annulled.
 
Regarding the changes which had been wrought in the legal status of women in the age of the Antonine C?sars, we are informed that whereas under the older Roman law a woman at marriage came under the Patria Potestas of her husband, under the later law, as influenced by the principles involved in the Stoic philosophy, she remained as a member of her own family, or was placed under the protection of a guardian appointed by her parents, whose jurisdiction over her, although superior to that of her husband, was not such as to interfere with her personal liberty; thus, the same as under matriarchal usages, the situation of the Roman woman, whether married or single, was one of great influence. Of this freedom exercised by women in the time of the Antonine C?sars, Mr. Maine remarks:
 
But Christianity tended somewhat from the very first to narrow this remarkable liberty.... The latest Roman Law, so far as it is touched by the Constitutions of the Christian Emperors, bears some marks of a reaction against the liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults. And the prevalent state of religious sentiment may explain why it is that modern jurisprudence, forged in the furnace of barbarian conquest, and formed by the fusion of Roman jurisprudence with patriarchal usage, has absorbed,356 among its rudiments, much more than usual of those rules concerning the position of women which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilization.258
 
Concerning the influence of ecclesiasticism on that portion of Roman jurisprudence relating particularly to women, Mr. Lecky observes:
 
Wherever the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and of wives, and a state of public opinion which has been formulated and regulated by these laws.
 
By means of a formulated ecclesiastical jurisprudence the complete inferiority of the sex was maintained,
 
and that generous public opinion, which in Rome had frequently rebelled against the injustice done to girls in depriving them of the greater portion of the inheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared.
 
In comparing the Roman law with the canon or ecclesiastical code, the same writer says that the pagan laws during the Empire were constantly repealing the old disabilities of women; but that it was the aim of the canon law to substitute enactments which should entail on the female sex the greatest personal restrictions and the most stringent subordination.259
 
Those who have paid attention to the history357 of the English Common ............