Women in procession on the Ara Pacis of Augustus
..in early Rome the paterfamilias had complete control over his wife and family, but in general Roman law allowed more rights to women than Greek [law]. In quite early times it became possible, and by the end of the republic usual, for a woman to marry without passing wholly into her husband's control. However it was necessary in this case for a woman to have a guardian through whom to conduct business and until the time of Augustus only Vestal Virgins were the exceptions to this rule. Later, women with three children became independent.
Married woman at Rome always had a position of greater dignity and a more public role to play than in Greece.. They did not live in seclusion, and they took their meals with their husbands, the all-male symposium, was not the social center of the life of upper-class Roman men as it was of Greek. Roman women were free to leave the house (wearing the stola matronalis and visit not only shops but public places such as theaters or law-courts. Many upper-class Roman women were influential, taking an active part in the business discussed in their houses. They were educated, clever, and good company.; some wielded power conspicuously.; others stayed in the background.
...there is evidence in literature that there were happy marriages in which both partners were equal in their informed concern for each other, even if the wife's responsibilities were confined to the home. The most striking is the loving encomium preserved in an inscription (the so-called Laudatio Turiae) supposed to be that of a certain Lucretius Vespillo (who served under Pompey in 48 and was consul under Augustus in 19BC) on his wife Turia. It recorded how courageously she concealed her husband during the proscriptions of 43-42 BS until his pardon was obtained, and how loyal she was both when they were betrothed and during the romantic and dangerous adventures of their forty-one years of married life.--- Oxford Companion to Classical Literature ,
