Un retrato social de las mujeres en el Satiricón de Petronio

Abstract

Mediante este estudio hemos pretendido poner de manifiesto la forma de pensar y de actuar de una buena parte de las mujeres de la época julio-claudia a través del Satiricón de Petronio. Las mujeres libertas, que son las que aparecen en esta novela, unidas a un varón tenían como objetivo velar por los intereses del matrimonio, basado fundamentalmente en el dinero. Las mujeres no sujetas a varón alguno consideraban a éste como un objeto que utilizaban a su capricho. Su poder lo ejercían de forma diferente: unas se servían de su juventud y belleza, otras entraban en competencia con los propios varones invertidos, otras conseguían satisfacer sus instintos sexuales básicos por cultura y dinero, y otras invistiéndose de un poder mágico que no tenían, les permitía, bajo el consentimiento del varón, maltratarlo y humillarlo.

Through Petronius’ Satiricon, this paper is targeted to reveal the way of thinking and acting of a large part of the women living in the Julio-Claudian period. The freed women in this novel appear joined to a man, in order to safeguard the marriage interests, the main foundation of this institute being the money. Those women who were not subject to a man considered them as an object to be used at their whim. These women exerted their power in different ways: some of them used their youth and beauty; other women competed with homosexual men in the conquest of other men; there were other females who satisfied their own basic sexual instincts through their culture or money. Finally, there were women who vested on themselves magical powers they did not have, but which allowed them to abuse and humiliate men with their consent.