Mari P

“Daughters, who had no part in military service of the state, were not included. However, women sui iuris had not the franchise either, since they were not heads of household in the fullest sense, having no potestas over children, and over property a potestas that was limited by restraints, originally far-reaching, over their ability of control and disposal (details in Gardner 1986:14–22). They were ‘heads of household’ only in a very limited sense. Restraints on women’s legal capacity will be discussed in the next chapter.”
― Jane F. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen

“ONE SIDE OF the history of Rome is a history of politics, of war, of victory and defeat, of citizenship and of everything that went on in public between prominent men. I have outlined one dramatic version of that history, as Rome transformed from a small, unimpressive town next to the Tiber into first a local and eventually an international power base. Almost every aspect of that transformation was contested and sometimes literally fought over: the rights of the people against the senate, the questions of what liberty meant and how it was to be guaranteed, the control that was, or was not, to be exercised over conquered territory, the impact of empire, for good or bad, on traditional Roman politics and values. In the process, a version of citizenship was somehow invented that was new in the classical world. Greeks had occasionally shared citizenship, on an ad hoc basis, between two cities. But the idea that it was the norm, as the Romans insisted, to be a citizen of two places – to count two places as home – was fundamental to Roman success on the battlefield and elsewhere, and it has proved influential right up into the twenty-first century. This was a Roman revolution, and we are its heirs.”
― Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

“in early Rome and for much of the Republic, women were commonly married with manus; that is, they passed from the power of their fathers into that of their husbands (who certainly could not be held liable for obligations contracted while a woman was under another’s power), or even, if unmarried at their fathers’ death, became briefly sui iuris and then passed into power again; remarriage of widows was also regular.”
― Jane F. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen

“The implications, however, were again revolutionary. In extending citizenship to people who had no direct territorial connections with the city of Rome, they broke the link, which most people in the classical world took for granted, between citizenship and a single city. In a systematic way that was then unparalleled, they made it possible not just to become Roman but also to be a citizen of two places at once:”
― Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome