"If, Romans, every individual among us had made it a rule to maintain the prerogative and authority of a husband with respect to his own wife, we should have less trouble with the whole sex. But now, our privileges, overpowered at home by female contumacy, are, even here in the Forum, spurned and trodden under foot; and because we are not able to withstand each separately, we now dread their collective body.... It was not without painful emotions of shame that I, just now, made my way to the Forum through the midst of a band of women. Had I not been restrained by respect for the modesty and dignity of some individuals among them, rather than of the whole number, and been unwilling that they should be seen rebuked by a consul, I should have said to them: 'What sort of practice is this, of running into public, besetting the streets, and addressing other women's husbands? Could not each have made the same request to her husband at home?. Are your blandishments more seducing in public than in private, and with other women's husbands than your own? Although, if the modesty of matrons confined them within the limits of their own rights, it did not become you, even at home, to concern yourselves about what laws might be passed or repealed here.' Our ancestors thought it not proper that women should perform any, even private, business, without a director; but that they should ever be under the control of parents, brothers, or husbands. We, it seems, suffer them now to interfere in the management of State affairs, and to introduce themselves into the Forum, into general assemblies, and into assemblies of election. For, what are they doing at this moment in your streets and lanes? What but arguing, some in support of the motion of the plebeian tribunes, others for the repeal of the law? Will you give the reins to their intractable nature, and their uncontrolled passions, and then expect that they themselves should set bounds to their lawlessness, when you have failed to do so? This is the smallest of the injunctions laid on them by usage or the laws, all of which women bear with impatience. They long for liberty, or rather, to speak the truth, for unbounded freedom in every particular. For what will they not attempt, if they now come off victorious?