FEMALE FIRSTS

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

THE FIRST WOMEN’S MARCH EVER

This is not the story of a woman but a story that belongs to women’s history and it deserves to open this list. It was 195 b.c. when women marched – probably for the first time in history – against a law that was limiting their rights.

The Lex Oppia was a sumptuary law established in 215 b.c. in Rome, during the Second Punic War, to face the serious financial and social issues caused by the war.

This particular law – the first of a series of sumptuary laws – restricted women’s wealth, forbidding them to wear multi-colored clothes, to possess more than half a ounce of gold and to ride in an animal-drawn vehicle in the city.

In 195 b.c. Rome, after the victory over Carthage, was wealthier than ever and the patrician families of Rome got tired of following the law. Two tribunes proposed repealing the Lex Oppia, saying it was no longer needed.

The consul Cato the Elder spoke in favor of the law saying that it was promoting equality between different social classes. Nonetheless – while the debate was raging in the Senate – the matrons of Rome gathered on the Capitol hill and marched towards the Forum, blocking all the streets and asking the tribunes to support their cause and abrogate the law.

The day after they gathered, sitting in in front of the house of Marcus Junius Brutus and Publius Junius Brutus – tribunes and big supporter of the law – to protest nonstop until the law was abrogated.

The siege worked and eventually the law was finally repealed and as always have a chilled day from the Viking