There Were Two Types of Marriage in Ancient Rome
Here’s what marriage looked like under the patriarchal social structure of Ancient Rome.
Since Roman societies were inherently patriarchal, Roman men were bestowed with the authority to make the rules, while the women were expected to submissively follow them. Love, sex, and marriage adhered to the same paradigm.
Even though romantic love did exist and was mentioned frequently in poems, it had little to no place in marital relationships. Sex, which is seen as an expression of passion, was commonly linked to extramarital affairs, and very rarely, was an important part of marriages in ancient Roman society. Marriage between a man and woman was seen as a foundation of Roman society, and was more of a business transaction than anything else; the primary purpose of a marriage was to produce children.
Origins of the Institution of Marriage in Ancient Rome
In ancient Rome, marriage was a monogamous institution, which meant that according to ancient Roman law, a Roman citizen was permitted to have only one spouse at a time. This monogamy in particular is what differentiated the Romans and Greeks from other ancient civilizations, in which polygyny was a common and widely accepted practice.
