Abstract

For a long time, Roman history, taken in its social and legal aspects, was written as a history of males, before Women's Studies and very recently Gender Studies tried to re-established a kind of balance, even if this last field is still little explored by law historians. The hierarchical structure of Roman society—reputed to have been highly macho—was not necessarily based on a simple sex relationship but on a gender relationship in which the individual's biological sex was not enough to fix his or her identity. Actually, many criteria relating to bodily attitudes in the broad sense (body language, clothing, hygiene, morality, personality etc.) were ultimately more important in assessing an individual's sexual identity. In this complex social game, the Romans could consider the existence of a _tertium genus hominum_ between man and woman. In line with a detailed social analysis and the idea that law is an extension of social culture according to many anthropologists, we have to consider that interpretation of legal texts would require the use of a specific reading grid to assess their gendered issue. The conception of this grid is a major part of the work made by the team operating the ANR HLJP gender project initiated in 2022, for which we developed a specific working method for law history in general that is still being tested for law sources presenting a gendered aspect. Through the exegesis of some roman legal texts relating to public and private spheres organization, we will illustrate how a gender-specific reading grid could possibly refine our knowledge of Roman law.