Effects of The Marriage Exchange
Julius Caesar accused Cato of wife trafficking and marrying Marcia off to Hortensius simply in order to gain his wealth. . "For why," said Caesar, "should Cato give up his wife if he wanted her, or why, if he did not want her, should he take her back again? Unless it was true that the woman was at the first set as a bait for Hortensius, and lent by Cato when she was young that he might take her back when she was rich." However, this is generally thought to be political mudslinging as, Plutarch asserts that in actuality, in 49 BC Cato was fleeing Rome with the rest of the aristocracy with Pompeius as a result of Caesar's approach. Because of his impending absence, he needed someone to look after his young daughters and household in his place, which Marcia did.
Plutarch described Marcia as "...a woman of reputed excellence, about whom there was the most abundant talk..." This suggests that she was a more mature woman and Appian suggests that Cato was extremely fond of her. Because of this, one can assume that the involved parties viewed marriage as a perpetuation of State without romantic ideals of love.
Many assumptions have been made regarding Cato's character based upon his endorsement of the marriage between Marcia and Hortensius. Appian said that "as a girl; was extremely fond of her, and she had borne him children. Nevertheless, he gave her to Hortensius, one of his friends,— who desired to have children but was married to a childless wife..." This sacrifice is used by Plutarch and other historians to illustrate Cato's honorability and his willingness to sacrifice a wife he liked in the name of friendship. This positive interpretation of Cato's character is reflected in Lucan's Pharsalia and how the Uticans mourned his death.
In her Masters of Rome series of novels, Colleen McCullough suggests that Cato gave Marcia to Hortensius simply because he could not reconcile his passion for her with his Stoic ideals, that he never let her go emotionally, and that he took her back at the first opportunity.
Read more about this topic: Marcia (wife Of Cato The Younger)
Famous quotes containing the words effects of, effects, marriage and/or exchange:
“Like the effects of industrial pollution ... the AIDS crisis is evidence of a world in which nothing important is regional, local, limited; in which everything that can circulate does, and every problem is, or is destined to become, worldwide.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“If one judges love according to the greatest part of the effects it produces, it would appear to resemble rather hatred than kindness.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)
“To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coöperate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)