"If we had, each one of us, made it a rule to uphold the rights and authority of the husband in our own households we should not now have this trouble with the whole body of our women. [2] As things are now our liberty of action, which has been checked and rendered powerless by female despotism at home, is actually crushed and trampled on here in the Forum, and because we were unable to withstand them individually we have now to dread their united strength. [3] I used to think that it was a fabulous story which tells us that in a certain island the whole of the male sex was extirpated by a conspiracy amongst the women; [4] there is no class of women from whom the gravest dangers may not arise, if once you allow intrigues, plots, secret cabals to go on. I can hardly make up my mind which is worse, the affair itself or the disastrous precedent set up. [5] The latter concerns us as consuls and magistrates; the former has to do more with you, Quirites. Whether the measure before you is for the good of the commonwealth or not is for you to determine by your votes; this tumult amongst the women, whether a spontaneous movement or due to your instigation, M. Fundanius and L. Valerius, certainly points to failure on the part of the magistrates, but whether it reflects more on you tribunes or on the consuls I do not know. [6] It brings the greater discredit on you if you have carried your tribunitian agitation so far as to create unrest among the women, but more disgrace upon us if we have to submit to [7??] laws being imposed upon us through fear of a secession on their part, as we had to do formerly on occasions of the secession of the plebs. It was not without a feeling of shame that I made my way into the Forum through a regular army of women. [8] Had not my respect for the dignity and modesty of some amongst them, more than any consideration for them as a whole, restrained me from letting them be publicly rebuked by a consul, I should have said, 'What is this habit you have formed of running abroad and blocking the streets and accosting men who are strangers to you? [9] Could you not each of you put the very same question to your husbands at home? Surely you do not make yourselves more attractive in public than in private, to other women's husbands more than to your own? [10] If matrons were kept by their natural modesty within the limits of their rights, it would be most unbecoming for you to trouble yourselves even at home about the laws which may be passed or repealed here.' Our ancestors would have no woman transact even private business except through her guardian, they placed them under the tutelage of parents or brothers or husbands. [11] We suffer them now to dabble in politics and mix themselves up with the business of the Forum and public debates and election contests. What are they doing now in the public roads and at the street corners but recommending to the plebs the proposal of their tribunes and voting for the repeal of the law. [12] Give the reins to a headstrong nature, to a creature that has not been tamed, and then hope that they will themselves set bounds to their licence if you do not do it yourselves. [13] This is the smallest of those restrictions which have been imposed upon women by ancestral custom or by laws, and which they submit to with such impatience. [14] What they really want is unrestricted freedom, or to speak the truth, licence, and if they win on this occasion what is there that they will not attempt?
