Feminine Mystique
I was asked to explain why, in my nature, I seek to dominate and control women. I do not believe to repress women and nor do I avidly pursue a state of being and habit that would treat women cruelly. The answer is two-fold-- there is a part based on tradition and on what I see to be the delicate nature of a woman, and a part rooted in male desire. So, in order to give an answer, both must be explained.

In Rome, there was a joke among men that you had to treat your wife as well as you treated your best slave; both were just as likely to poison your dinner.

The saying did not mean that women should be treated as slaves, though there is the connotation of such which appoints women a lower class next to men. After all, one of the most important events in the founding of Rome was based upon the rape of women. In an equal society, no such act of brutality would be revered. The saying instead emphasizes that in Rome both slaves and women fell under the dominance and rule of Roman men. Both were, in essence, property, though women were afforded a sphere of influence both socially and politically. For instance, a woman could not vote and neither could she drink wine, but she was free to leave the house and pursue interests outside of home, morality willing. Roman women were, by no means, Athenian in their rights.

Women were still independent in a sense. Why else would Ovid need to write a love manual for men to charm women? If women were mere property, a man would not need to worry about charming his woman; he would simply take her and she would have no say in the matter. Women, then, had a unique place in society where they were property in one sense, yet not in another because they were Roman and to be Roman was to have a life better than what anyone else in the empire could enjoy. For the most part, however, women were second class citizens to men.

Marriage, especially among the high class, was little more than an exchange of property from father to husband. This shouldn’t be too strange because it was not exclusive to Rome. There was a ritual in marriage that a man was to physically take his bride from the arms of her parents. Love meant very little. Catullus advised girls obey their husbands to whom they were given, for she and all rights over her were given to her husband. Only one third of her virginity belonged to her. The other two thirds belonged to her father and mother. Upon marriage, the entirety of it belonged to her husband. With manus, everything she owned belonged to her husband; without, her father. It was never to be hers.

Aside from that, there was an inherent suspicion in men towards women, especially defiant women who knew all too well how to hide their manipulations behind feminine charms. Roman men were raised to fear their mothers, and they did. To a dominant man, it was a strange contradiction to dominate but fear what must be dominated. I believe that, in part, this was what contributed to the strange position of women. Men feared them, loathed to fear them, and wanted to establish control over them and that fear. Isn’t that in human nature?

This was how I was raised. These were the values instilled in me by every teacher and every role model. I carry them with me still because it wasn’t until this present time, this age of man, that the status of women changed.

I do not believe women to be inferior. I’ve never felt that way. Indeed, I fell in love with Pandora because she was bold and defiant. Girls and women like Pandora were exceptional, though, because they were not the norm of what was usually found in Rome. While Pandora’s father raised her to be vocal and bold, he must have known that he was making of her a poor wife for a Roman man, who would not have been so delighted by her unique personality. To a man, what did it matter if his wife could recite Ovid for her only goal in life was to have children and take care of the home. A women who did not “know her place” was a threat to male control, a well establish standard by which all of Rome was founded upon.

I loved and still love Pandora because she was not weak and without opinion. I wanted her because in her was an equal, not a slave or a second class citizen.

Still, I am a man. While I valued her opinions then and now, I want, wanted and expected her to trust that mine were and are for the best for the both of us. As the man, she was to listen to me in matters of importance. I would, of course, always take her feelings into account, though the final say was and is mine. Intelligent women are the worst for they never accept the control of a man, and if they do, man be wary of her. She will be in constant defiance, always thinking that what she wishes is best even when it is not.

Indeed, women are not slaves but tender creatures of whom should be eased of simple and everyday troubles that men are much better burdened with. Why should a beautiful woman worry over matters when instead she could make a man her servant to do such? To control her life is to take from her the everyday droll and stress of having to do so herself. In that manner, I feel that women are far too delicate to have to. I do not feel that they are too fragile and therefore lack the capacity, but rather that they should not have to. There is a distinct difference for I feel women very capable.

I want Pandora to be happy, not weighed down by obligations of the world. Let that onus be mine. Let her be beautiful and without worry or fear, for I would take care of her if she would but let me.

That being said, there is at the root of my desire the need to be dominant. This is the two-fold nature. As I said before, I feel it is my duty and my pleasure to take from women the troubles of every day life and decision. I was raised to believe women incapable. That, I do not carry within me, but rather made of it something that makes more sense-- women should not have to worry their fates. If a man has any worth at all, he would relieve her of her responsibilities so that her life is pleasure and contentment always.

Desire is far darker.

As a man, I never saw a woman more alluring, more seductive than when she lay underneath me. Within her vulnerability, which I had completely within my will, I could sooth and pleasure, show her that to be vulnerable is nothing to fear if the one in control will tend to you suitably. I never wanted to harm or frighten. Again, I wanted the women to be without fear and to know that I would take care of everything. Her pleasure was mine. With a halo of mussed, tossed hair, closed eyes, and prone body, I would see to her every need if she would but see to mine.

Ah, but that look of fear. I thrilled for it then just as I thrilled for the steady dissolve and submission that would end in complete trust.

Marius de Romanus
pridie Nones September MMDCCLX