the bride is conducted from her old home to that of her husband, accompanied by three boys, sons of living parents, one carrying a torch while the other two lead her by either hand; flute-players go before, and nuts are thrown to the boys.  This deductio, charmingly described in the beautiful sixty-fifth poem of Catullus, is full of interesting detail which must be omitted here.  When the bridegroom’s house is reached, the bride smears the doorposts with fat and oil and ties a woollen fillet round each:  she is then lifted over the threshold, is taken by her husband into the partnership of fire and water—­the essentials of domestic life—­and passes into the atrium.  The morrow will find her a materfamilias, sitting among her maids in that atrium, or in the more private apartments behind it: 

  Claudite ostia, virgines
  Lusimus satis.  At boni
  Coniuges, bene vivite, et
  Munere assiduo valentem
  Exercete iuventam.

Even the dissipated Catullus could not but treat the subject of marriage with dignity and tenderness, and in this last stanza of his poem he alludes to the duties of a married pair in language which would have satisfied the strictest Roman.  He has also touched another chord which would echo in the heart of every good citizen, in the delicious lines which just precede those quoted, and anticipate the child—­a son of course—­that is to be born, and that will lie in his mother’s arms holding out his little hands, and smiling on his father.[216] Nothing can better illustrate the contrast in the mind of the Roman between passionate love and serious marriage than a comparison of this lovely poem with those which tell the sordid tale of the poet’s intrigues with Lesbia (Clodia).  The beauty and gravitas of married life as it used to be are still felt and still found, but the depths of human feeling are not stirred by them.  Love lies beyond, is a fact outside the pale of the ordered life of the family or the State.

No one who studies this ceremonial of Roman marriage, in the light of the ideas which it indicates and reflects, can avoid the conclusion that the position of the married woman must have been one of substantial dignity, calling for and calling out a corresponding type of character.  Beyond doubt the position of the Roman materfamilias was a much more dignified one than that of the Greek wife.  She was far indeed from being a mere drudge or squaw; she shared with her husband in all the duties of the household, including those of religion, and within the house itself she was practically supreme.[217] She lived in the atrium, and was not shut away in a women’s chamber; she nursed her own children and brought them up; she had entire control of the female slaves who were her maids; she took her meals with her husband, but sitting, not reclining, and abstaining from wine; in all practical matters she was consulted, and only on questions political or intellectual was she expected to be silent.  When she went out arrayed in the graceful stola matronalis, she was treated with respect, and the passers-by made way for her; but it is characteristic of her position that she did not as a rule leave the house without the knowledge of her husband, or without an escort.[218]