There was one law, however, which might be considered to advantage by some of our own legislators. It had been decreed that no one should marry sooner than six months after a divorce. Augustus extended the time to eighteen months. We talk much and with a fine consciousness of superior virtue about the chaotic state of Roman marriages. What will our fortieth-century moralist who reads present history, as photographed from day to day in the blazing journals, say of the decadence of a civilization in which people may marry two hours after divorce, or find themselves some fine morning released from their marriage bonds without knowing it? And we are an eminently moral people. On the influence of the Roman women let the Romans speak for themselves. It was proposed in the Senate that men should not be permitted to take their wives into the provinces, as they had too much power with the soldiers, interfered in settling business affairs, and made another center of government--indeed, they sometimes “presided at the drill of cohorts and the evolutions of the legions,” besides dividing the homage. The majority of the senators objected to this bill, and pronounced its author “no fit censor.” An able and eloquent man, in reply to it, said that “much of the sternness of antiquity had been changed into a better and more genial system.” A few concessions had been made to the wants of women, but “in other respects man and wife share alike.” There might be some scheming women, but were the magistrates free from various unworthy passions, and was this a reason why none should be sent to the provinces? If husbands were sometimes corrupted by their wives, were single men any better? “It is idle to shelter our own weakness under other names; for it is the husband’s fault if the wife transgresses propriety.” This wise orator was sustained by eminent men who gave their own fortunate experiences, and the bill was lost. Such a tribute to the helpfulness and strong character of the Roman woman may be commended to a few of our enlightened thinkers who, curiously enough, use the low standards of men who never pretended to be moral, and the frailties of dependent women who were not permitted to be so, or of a class that has always appealed to the weaknesses of men since the beginning of the world, to prove the degeneracy of society under the influence of feminine intelligence! It was never the woman of strong intellectual fiber and serious interests that Rome had to fear. It was another class, that did not, in any sense, represent her either in intelligence or character. V