Did the Romans really say this about feminism?

[Winston]

Grunt said:

Perhaps Cato the Censor said it best more then TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO...

"If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters." - Cato the Censor, Roman Empire

[BellaRuth]

I think I've heard that one thrown around before.

I find this one pretty interesting from the lady that believe lesbianism to be impossible:

"I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings, and would surely perish without male protection." -- Queen Victoria, 1870

[Master]

Grunt said:

Perhaps Cato the Censor said it best more then TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO...

"If you allow them [women] to pull away restraints and put themselves on an equality with their husbands, do you imagine that you will be able to tolerate them? From the moment that they become your fellows, they will become your masters." - Cato the Censor, Roman Empire

probably so. apparently we do. and so many dont think women becoming our masters is a bad thing.

[Think Different]

Many other cultures have humorous sayings about women, such as in Italy. You know how we always roll our eyes and comment "women drivers!"? In Italy they say "donna al volante, pericolo costante", which means "a woman at the wheel is a constant danger". There are lots of others. It just proves that feminism is not universal.

[dano]

Never has a people perished from an excess of wine; all perish from disorder of women.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[fschmidt]

Livy said that Cato said this. The full quote is:

"Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein . . . Women want total freedom or rather - to call things by their names - total license. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters"

Cato lived before feminism really took hold in Rome, but by Livy's time, Rome had feminism similar to ours. And it got worse.

Below are some quotes from Daily Life In Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino written in 1940. Rome was more like today than like 1940, so the author sounds like a conservative describing the modern condition.

"Contrary to general opinion [...] it is certain that Roman women of the epoch we are studying enjoyed a dignity and an independence at least equal if not superior to those claimed by contemporary feminists."

"it is easy to cite "emancipated", or rather "unbridled", wives, who were the various product of the new condition of Roman marriage. Some evaded the duties of maternity for fear of losing their good looks; some took pride in being behind their husbands in no sphere of activity, and vied with them in test of strength which their sex would seem to forbid; some were not content to live their lives by their husband's side, but carried on another life without him at the price of betrayals and surrenders for which they did not even trouble to blush."

Or read some Juvenal. He has a woman say:

"We agreed long ago," says the lady, "that you were to go your way, and I mine. You may confound sea and sky with your bellowing, I am a human being after all."

and more by Juvenal on marriage at the time:

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If you are not to love the woman betrothed and united to you in due form, what reason have you for marrying? Why waste the supper, and the wedding cakes to be given to the well-filled guests when the company is slipping away----to say nothing of the first night's gift of a salver rich with glittering gold inscribed with Dacian or Germanic victories? 28 If you are honestly uxorious, and devoted to one woman, then bow your head and submit your neck to the yoke. Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment and plunder him. So the better the man, the more desirable he be as a husband, the less good will he get out of his wife. No present will you ever make if your wife forbids; nothing will you ever sell if she objects; nothing will you buy without her consent. She will arrange your friendships for you; she will turn your now-aged friend from the door which saw the beginnings of his beard. Panders and trainers can make their wills as they please, as also can the gentlemen of the arena; but you will have to write down among your heirs more than one rival of your own.

"Crucify that slave!" says the wife. "But what crime worthy of death has he committed? " asks the husband; "where are the witnesses? who informed against him? Give him a hearing at least; no delay can be too long when a man's life is at stake!" "What, you numskull? You call a slave a man, do you? He has done no wrong, you say? Be it so; but this is my will and my command: let my will be the voucher for the deed." Thus does she lord it over her husband. But before long she vacates her kingdom; she flits from one home to another, wearing out her bridal veil; then back she flies again and returns to her own imprints in the bed that she has abandoned, leaving behind her the newly decorated door, the festal hangings on the walls, and the garlands still green over the threshold. Thus does the tale of her husbands grow; there will be eight of them in the course of five autumns----a fact worthy of commemoration on her tomb!
-----------------------

and here is some more on women's behavior:

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with thirst enough to drink off the vessel containing full three gallons which is laid at her feet, and from which she tosses off a couple of pints before her dinner to create a raging appetite; then she brings it all up again and souses the floor with the washings of her inside. The stream runs over the marble pavement; the gilt basin reeks of Falernian, for she drinks and vomits like a big snake that has tumbled into a vat. The sickened husband closes his eyes and so keeps down his bile.
-----------------------

Women abused their husbands, divorce and promiscuity were rampant, and women had far too much power. The Roman Empire was much like our times.

[Winston]

Many other cultures have humorous sayings about women, such as in Italy. You know how we always roll our eyes and comment "women drivers!"? In Italy they say "donna al volante, pericolo costante", which means "a woman at the wheel is a constant danger". There are lots of others. It just proves that feminism is not universal.

Lol. That must be why you don't see women driving taxis, buses or commercial airlines. How do liberals explain that? Do they even try? There are some women bus drivers in America, but they are usually masculine and unattractive.

How many of you would trust a team of women pilots in the cockpit of the 747 you are flying in? lol

I guess Amelia Earheart was a good pilot, but she vanished. lol

[RickyRetardo]

I actually think women are better drivers than men.

Otherwise, why would insurance companies charge men more for the same insurance?

The insurance company's #1 priority is to make as much money as possible, so I trust their judgment on this.

[Ghost]

.

[Cornfed]

Rome and America are quite similar. Feminism is a modern name for an ancient evil.

Once you realize that feminism is a name for what happens when a small elite of men have power over the mass of men without any corresponding responsibility, then it all makes sense.

[pandabear]

http://www.newfoundations.com/WOMAN/Aristotle.html

Woman may be said to be an inferior man.
-- Poetics

The female is, as it were, a mutilated male.
-- Generation of Animals

Females are weaker and colder in nature, and we must look upon the female character as being a sort of natural deficiency.
-- Generation of Animals

What difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.
-- Politics

The female is softer in disposition than the male, is more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the young; the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female, more savage, more simple and less cunning. The traces of these differentiated characteristics are more or less visible everywhere, but they are especially visible where character is the more developed, and most of all in man.
-- History of Animals

Woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory. She is also more wakeful , more shrinking, more difficult to rouse to action, and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment.
-- History of Animals

[Wolfeye]

Women shouldn't try for IDENTICALITY with men. "Equal" in that sense, I believe, is an issue- just as the reverse would be (men trying to be IDENTICAL with women). There is, of course, some overlap- particularly in the basic self-sufficiency skills (including self-protection). I don't figure all these women are so uneasy to live with because of them having rights & such. I believe it's because they have an adversarial mindset when it comes to men.

That doesn't work with most (if any) social situations. Look at parenting: It doesn't work out well for the parent to act like enemies to the children. If a father was the hero of the war & then the tyrant of the house, for example. He's failed on two levels that way, since all that war activity is supposed to be to KEEP these hostilities from coming to his house (at the very least).

Speaking of Rome, didn't their mentalities blow up in their faces? I mean, in a BIG way? Didn't they drag a bunch of people down with them? I'd take what they said & did with a grain of salt. Success in f***ing things up doesn't necessarily mean that there's something to emulate.

[pandabear]

The Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when the Turks seized Constantinople.

[Wolfeye]

"Lasted." They did a lot of off-the-wall shit & dragged so much of the world down into their crash- not applaudable, in my opinion.

[Cornfed]

The Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when the Turks seized Constantinople.

Well of course that is debatable. Most people would say the collapse of the Western Empire ~1k years earlier was the end and a few Greeks holed up somewhere calling themselves the Roman Empire did not in fact constitute such, but each to his own.