Chapter 7 Summary

This chapter focuses on events occurring from 1 AD to 4 AD. Claudius' generation comes of age and engages in a series of marriages, often between related families. Claudius discusses the various marriages, nearly all conducted for political purposes. He then enters on a prolonged analysis of the state of marriage in Rome, noting that the custom of marriage was then becoming increasingly less-frequently practiced. Augustus blamed this on the men, and often railed against their so-called selfish bachelorhood. Claudius, however, concludes that the decline was due to women's resistance. Married women became the legal chattel of their husbands and were expected to remain entirely monogamous and sacrifice their lives and figures upon the alter of motherhood, whereas single women retained their own liberty and monies and could escape childbirth and prolong their youthful figures and engage in any number of sexual adventures of any...