Investigating The Freewoman

When searching through the archives, I was immediately drawn to a publication from the early 1900's titled The FreWoman. The Freewoman is a weekly feminist review. I found it quite interesting because at that time in history, the majority of women were focused on the right to vote and nothing else. This publication, however, focuses on many complex women's issues that we are still facing today. The journal, while full of thought provoking and beautifully written essays and articles, struggled financially and was only in publication for a year. This fact makes the existing volumes even more valuable. 

After much careful searching, I decided to focus exclusively on an essay entitled "Feminism Under the Republic and the Early Empire." I took two years of Latin here at TU and in that time, I learned a great deal about Roman culture and famous poets, so I found this piece to be especailly intriguing. It takes a look at feminism, or lack thereof, in Roman times. It depicts the role of the Roman wife, along with her duties and expectations. It also describes that state of the laws of the time. Women were mostly prohibited from education and legally, were unable to attend any political or monetary power. Women were simply in a state of submissive to whomever the most prominent male in their life was. They were passed from father to husband and sometimes, in the case of the husband's death, to the son's control. 

This essay was written on November 23, 1911. It is classified as an essay. It features topics such as Women, Feminism, and Women's Issues. It is featured on pages 7-9 in the journal. The Freewoman, and this piece in general, is still relevant to women's issues today. It is important to know the history of our gender in order to know where our gender needs to focus in the future. This essay relates not only to other esays and articles in the Freewoman, but to The New Age publication as well. Many female writers at the time wrote for both.