Sculpture showing a Roman couple
Marriage quarrels and mismatches between spouses is not a problem only in modern times. Proof of this can be a marriage from a close family circle Cicero.
Certainly, one of the more pathetic marriages in Rome about which information has survived (thanks to Cicero’s letters) is the marriage of Cicero’s brother – Quintus and Pomponia – the sister of Cicero’s friend, Attica. Interestingly, the letters are mainly blamed on the woman.
Cicero even cites the situation when a feast took place in the house of Quintus and Pomponia. Apparently during it, in the presence of guests, the woman was to grow up: “I feel like a stranger in my own house”. Quintus was supposed to answer this complainant: “There, you see what I have to put up with every day!”. Apparently, their hard relationship survived strangely 25 years. Eventually, the couple divorced, and Quintus himself was, to sum up: “Nothing is better than not having to share a bed”.
- Beard Mary, SPQR. Historia starożytnego Rzymu, Poznań 2016
