not whether it reflects greater disgrace on you, tribunes, or on the consuls:  on you certainly, if you have, on the present occasion, brought these women hither for the purpose of raising tribunitian seditions; on us, if we suffer laws to be imposed on us by a secession of women, as was done formerly by that of the common people.  It was not without painful emotions of shame, that I, just now, made my way into the forum through the midst of a band of women.  Had I not been restrained by respect for the modesty and dignity of some individuals among them, rather than of the whole number, and been unwilling that they should be seen rebuked by a consul, I should have said to them, ’What sort of practice is this, of running out into public, besetting the streets, and addressing other women’s husbands?  Could not each have made the same request to her husband at home?  Are your blandishments more seducing in public than in private; and with other women’s husbands, than with your own?  Although if the modesty of matrons confined them within the limits of their own rights, it did not become you, even at home, to concern yourselves about what laws might be passed or repealed here.’  Our ancestors thought it not proper that women should perform any, even private business, without a director; but that they should be ever under the control of parents, brothers, or husbands.  We, it seems, suffer them, now, to interfere in the management of state affairs, and to introduce themselves into the forum, into general assemblies, and into assemblies of election.  For, what are they doing, at this moment, in your streets and lanes?  What, but arguing, some in support of the motion of the plebeian tribunes; others, for the repeal of the law?  Will you give the reins to their intractable nature, and their uncontrolled passions, and then expect that themselves should set bounds to their licentiousness, when you have failed to do so?  This is the smallest of the injunctions laid on them by usage or the laws, all which women bear with impatience:  they long for liberty; or rather, to speak the truth, for unbounded freedom in every particular.  For what will they not attempt, if they now come off victorious?

3.  “Recollect all the institutions respecting the sex, by which our forefathers restrained their undue freedom, and by which they subjected them to their husbands; and yet, even with the help of all these restrictions, you can scarcely keep them within bounds.  If, then, you suffer them to throw these off one by one, to tear them all asunder, and, at last, to be set on an equal footing with yourselves, can you imagine that they will be any longer tolerable by you?  The moment they have arrived at an equality with you, they will have become your superiors.  But, forsooth, they only object to any new law being made against them:  they mean to deprecate, not justice, but severity.  Nay, their wish is, that a law which you have admitted, established by your suffrages, and confirmed by the practice and experience