Nothing could be more striking than the affection of Cicero for his daughter. He writes to her in the most endearing terms, cared for her every want, and was inconsolable for her loss when death carried her away. There are numerous instances in which wives resolved to share the ill-fortune of their husbands to endure calamity along with them, and to die rather than survive them. This ideal remained with Roman men till the end of the Empire. It is the standard by which Juvenal metes out his criticism on the women of his own day, and many of the ill-natured judgments uttered against the sex are based on the old-fashioned conception of a Roman matron’s duties. CHAPTER II. THE OTHER SIDE. But there is quite another side to this picture. In the early stages of Roman history there is reason to believe that the Roman wife was completely under the control of her husband. The Roman idea of a family made the father a despot, with power of life and death over his children, who could do nothing without his consent. This was the case in regard to male children, even after they had reached a considerable age. Women, according to the opinion of the early Romans, were always children. They required protection and guidance during their whole life, and could never be freed from despotic control. Accordingly, when a Roman girl married, she had to choose whether she would remain under the control of her father, or pass into the control or--as it was called--into the hands of her husband. It is likely that in the early ages of the city she always passed from the power of her father into the hands of her husband, and the position she occupied was that of daughter to her husband. She thus became entirely subject to him, and was at his mercy. Roman history supplies many instances of the despotism which husbands exercised over their wives. The slightest indiscretion was sometimes punished by death, while men might do what they liked without let or hindrance. “If you were to catch your wife,” was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, “in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you, she would not venture to touch you with her finger, and indeed she has no right.” Wives were prohibited from tasting wine at the risk of the severest penalties. The conduct of Egnatius was praised who, surprising his wife in the act of sipping the forbidden liquid, beat her to death.[71] The same sternness appears in the reasons which induced some of the Romans to dismiss their wives. Sulpicius Gallus dismissed his because she appeared in the streets without a veil; Antistius Vetus dismissed his because he saw her speaking secretly to a freedwoman in public; and P. Sempronius Sophus sent his away because she had ventured to go to the public games without informing him of her movements.[72]