Domitian.[118] A mother could get an injunction to restrain extravagance
on the part of her children.[119] Women could not adopt.[120]

Married women, spinsters, and widows had as much freedom as men in
disposing of property by will. If there were children, the Roman law put
certain limitations on the testator's powers, whether man or woman. By
the Falcidian Law no one was allowed to divert more than three fourths
of his estate from his (or her) natural heirs.[121] But for any adequate
cause a woman could disinherit her children completely; and there are
many instances of this extant both in the Law Books and in the
literature of the day.[122]

Single women had grown absolutely unshackled and even their guardians
had become a mere formality, as the words of Gaius, already quoted (page
8) prove. That they had complete disposal of their property is proved
furthermore by the numerous complaints in Roman authors about the
sycophants who flattered and toadied the wealthy ladies with an eye to
being remembered in their wills.[123] For it is evident that if these
women had not had the power freely to dispose of their own property,
there would have been no point in paying them such assiduous court. The
legal age of maturity was now twenty-five for both male and female.

[Sidenote: Women engaged in business pursuits.]

Women engaged freely in all business pursuits. We find them in all kinds
of retail trade and commerce,[124] as members of guilds,[125] in
medicin[126] innkeeping,[127] in vaudevil[128]; there were even
female barbers[129] and charioteer[130]. Examples of women who toiled
for a living with their own hands are indeed very old, as the widow,
described by Homer, who worked for a scanty wage to support her