Free A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom Page A

., at the age of seventy-five, his last words were spoken to his wife urging her not to forget the happiness of their married life. 41
    Livia was apparently more indulgent toward her husband’s extramar- ital affairs than her predecessor. She not only accepted his mistresses, but was even said to have procured them for him. But this was not all that was said about Livia. Indeed, judged by the venomous accounts of such historians as Tacitus, she was an infamous intriguing shrew who secured the succession of her son Tiberius (from her first marriage) by removing those who stood in his way. Other historians have been more generous, Valerius Maximus and Seneca among them. And in the opin- ion of most scholars today, Livia’s contribution to Augustus’s success was considerable, and their devotion to each other exemplary. As the first empress of Rome, with her personal dignity and harmonious mar- riage, she set the standard for all successive empresses. 42

    For pictures of Roman marriage among the gentry, there are the letters written by the younger Pliny to his beloved third wife, Calpurnia. Here
    is a sample:

    Never have I complained so much about my public duties as I do now. They would not let me come with you to Campania in search of better health, and they still prevent me from following hard on your heels. This is a time when I particularly want to be with you, to see with my own eyes whether you are gaining in strength and weight. . . .

    You say that you are feeling my absence very much, and your only comfort when I am not there is to hold my writings in your hand. . . . You cannot believe how much I miss you. I love you so much, and we are not used to separations. 43
    Pliny’s letters, even if they were intended for publication, are testi- monies to a very great love. Most wives undoubtedly did not receive such adulation.
    But many enjoyed conjugal affection if we are to believe the numer- ous tombstones erected in their honor by grieving husbands. Funeral inscriptions praised them for being dear, holy, excellent, sweet, dutiful, obedient, chaste, loyal, thrifty, delightful, graceful, beautiful, and loving wives. The famous memorial tablet dedicated by her husband to a woman known as Turia in the first century B . C . E . presented the picture of a fully appreciated wife. Her funeral inscription began: “Rare are marriages as durable as this one, uninterrupted by divorce.” It told the story of a wife who, after her husband’s political disgrace, made super- human efforts to have him rehabilitated. Managing to bring him covertly back to Rome and then hiding him in the crawl space under her roof, she badgered the city magistrates with countless supplica- tions—not without risk to her personal safety—and was ultimately crowned with success: the spouses were granted the right to live together again. The only cloud on their happiness was the absence of a child. When Turia offered to divorce her husband so that he could marry another, he refused. In the end, he mourned an exemplary woman, “a faithful and submissive wife, good and gracious towards others, sociable and kind.” 44
    Preserved in the Louvre, the funerary altar erected around 180 C . E . by Julius Secundus to his wife, Cornelia Tyche, and their daughter, Julia Secundina, after a shipwreck that took both their lives reads: “With an incomparable attachment and fidelity to her husband, and
    an extraordinary devotion to her children, she lived 38 years, 4 months and 7 days, of which twelve years [were spent] with me.” The eleven- year-old daughter was remembered as “remarkable for her goodness, very pure in her conduct, and learned beyond the ordinary station of her sex.”
    Wives, too, erected monuments to their lost spouses, often described with the same terms of endearment used for the women. It is probable that the same words meant slightly different things when applied to each gender. “Obedient” implied that a woman was compliant toward