As the Romans Did: A Source Book in Roman Social History

By Jo-Ann Shelton

suspected that the divorce rate of the lower class was considerably lower than that of
the upper class. Another reason for divorce might be infertility.

63

The passage below

is a divorce agreement made in Egypt in 13 B. C., the same year as the marriage contract above and only seventeen years into the Roman period of Egypt. Although the
form of the agreement was not influenced by Roman procedure, the bride's family has
demanded the return of the dowry, as would a Roman family of this same period.

61 BGU 1103 (Select Papyri 6)

To Protarchus,

64

from Zois daughter of Heraclides, accompanied by her brother and

guardian Irenaeus son of Heraclides, and from Antipater son of Zeno:

Zois and Antipater agree that they have separated from one another and severed their
arrangement to live together.... And Zois agrees that Antipater has returned to her,
handed over from his household, the items he received as her dowry, namely clothing
valued at 120 silver drachmas

65

and a pair of gold earrings.

66

Both parties agree that

henceforth the marriage contract will be null and void ... and from this day it will be
lawful for Zois to marry another man and for Antipater to marry another woman, with
neither party being liable to prosecution.

ADULTERY
Because marriages were family arrangements rather than love matches, the Romans
had always allowed married men occasional sex with slaves or lower-class women. By
the late republican and early imperial periods, however, we hear of men having affairs
with married upper-class matrons. Perhaps young women, married to men much
older than themselves, looked to other men for excitement and novelty. Once again,

we have scant information about the lower class, but we can perhaps assume that
women living in cramped apartments and raising their children without the help of
nurses had little time or opportunity for adulterous affairs.

Where to Meet
In his poem The Art of Love, Ovid advises men on where to meet women and how to
begin an affair. Since most women were married in their early teens, Ovid is in fact
recommending adulterous affairs. The emperor Augustus was angered by
____________________
63

Turia suggested divorce to her husband when she did not bear him children; see
selection 288.

64
65

Protarchus: see footnote 37 of this chapter.

drachma: a Greek coin, approximately the value of a Roman denarius; for denarius,
see Appendix II.

66

In the case of divorce, the husband was required to return his wife's dowry to her
family.

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Publication information: Book title: As the Romans Did: A Source Book in Roman Social History. Contributors: Jo-Ann Shelton - Author.
Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of publication: New York. Publication year: 1988. Page number: 50

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