Nick Ward

Roman History
10/19/15
The Rape of Lucretia
In todays society, we have constructed gender roles that people are expected to fall into.
It is common for a man to go to college, get a degree and work to support his family, while a
mother takes care of her kids full time or works from home. In ancient Rome, while there were
still gender roles within the social construct, they are quite different from present day. They had
expectations of not just what people should do, but how they should be as people. The Rape of
Lucretia describes two main aspects of gender roles in the ancient empire: 1. How women were
expected to be chaste and honorable, while being submissive to all men 2. How men should be
considered dominant over women and how they were expected to treat them.
In ancient Rome, women were seen as inferior human beings, and therefore held to very
high standards. While men were able to do as they please, women were forced to be restrained.
In some cases, the expectations were hypocrisy, such as being chaste while being a child bearer.
These assumptions on how women should be were very difficult to live up to, and society saw
them through how well they did at fulfilling their specific role as opposed to being a good
person. In The Rape of Lucretia, Lucretia is portrayed as the model for how women should act in
ancient Roman society by practicing her spinning., and she was seen as being chaste by not
partaking in the feast with the other women. Because she was seen as fulfilling her role as a
women, Sextus Tarquinius saw her as beautiful on top of her good looks. It would not have

mattered whether or not Lucretia has a terrible personality. All that mattered during that time was
fitting in to the mold of Roman society.
The other main aspect of fulfilling the role of a women was being honorable, which
usually meant being submissive to men. When Sextus Tarquinius drew his sword at Lucretia, he
threatened that if she wasnt submissive to him and let him have sex with her, he would dishonor
her by killing her next to a naked slave and say that he murdered her due to the fact that she was
committing adultery. Since Lucretia knows the type of ridicule that she would receive and cares
about honoring her family, she lets Sextus rape her. This example really shows the struggle of
trying meet the expectations of society as a woman, since Lucretia sacrificed her chastity for the
honor of her family, and kills herself so that whenever women do things that they shouldnt be
doing, they cannot look up to Lucretia as an example to point out in a negative context. The
social constructs were valued enough that women were willing to die to protect their families and
make sure that they met the standards of their particular role.
The second aspect of gender roles shown in the text was the expectations that males had
in society. Men were seen as the superior beings compared to women, therefore had power over
them, which is easily found in the example of Sextus raping Lucretia. This example shows that
men were expected to be sexually dominant to women, and showing that women must be
submissive to the man, while also showing that men were expected to be violent people, which
comes through Sextuss threats of killing Lucretia and threatening to take away her honor by
saying she committed adultery. Another example of an expectation being set upon the men is
when Lucretia tells her husband and his friends that Sextus will pay if you are real men. This is
showing that men are expected to be violent and destructive people when there is a problem that
arises instead of trying to resolve the issue diplomatically or lawfully.

In conclusion, The Rape of Lucretia is a very accurate model of how the societal
constructs were seen and implemented in the Roman Empire. While men are the dominant
people and seem to be able to do anything, women were seen as inferior people will increasing
and furthermore unreachable expectations. While there are still societal constructs in todays
world, the assumptions of how men and women should be are far more reasonable than anything
the Romans had set in place. The current assumptions men and women deal with issues of
character rather than fulfilling roles, and will furthermore bring men and women closer to a level
ground of humanity.