Roman Life

   A normal Roman family consisted of a mom, a dad, sons and daughters, grown-up sons and their wives, and slaves. When the father was in charge, the family was called a paterfamilias. The father could be kind and loving or mean and evil. The father was fully in charge of the household.

   The boys were to be in the military or the government. The girls were born to marry and produce children. These children serve the state by doing those things. Everyone wanted strong and healthy baby boys. Sadly, many times, fathers chose to leave their baby girls or unhealthy boys outside the city to die. When an infant is eight or nine days old, it is given a bulla. A bulla is a charm to protect babies from evil spirits. Childbirth is extremely dangerous for mothers. All parents wanted their children to receive a good education. Unfortunately, if you were poor, the children had to work to help support the family. The places where children were allowed to work had very rough conditions, very hard work, and didn't get paid very much.

   If you were wealthy enough, you could attend school at age seven and go until you were at age 11. If you were a girl and you were at age 11, you were done with school, but if you were a boy at age 11, you could attend trading school if you could afford it.

   If you were a girl in Rome, you'd probably marry when you were 12-14 years old, but if you were a boy, you'd marry when you were 20 years old. Many of the Roman wedding traditions are still used in our culture today.

   I think it is very cruel to just leave baby girls and unhealthy boys outside the city to die. It is unfair that boys can continue schooling and girls cannot keep on schooling. It is also unfair that girls have to marry at a young age just because their father wants them to. Other than all of these, I really want to live there.