What I Learned From The Horatii

The tale of the Horatii and the Curiatii is a famous Roman story recorded by Livy. As is frequently the case in myth, it's set in the scene of war and, as is true in real life, this war and the ensuing battle between the two sets of brothers destroys the lives of those who neither declare nor truly want the war. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, often scorned by those who think they know better, accurately portrays the pain caused by war and bitterness. That's a discussion for another day, however. Nevertheless, quite similarly, a sister of the Horatii was engaged to be married to one of the brothers from the Curiatii. As Livy writes, when her brother, Horatius, wins and slays all three of the Curiatii and returns home, she breaks down weeping. Horatius promptly kills her in his rage, exclaiming "So perish any Roman woman who mourns the enemy."

While I did breach the subject of pacifism, I actually want to talk about feminism.
Last semester, in a class required for my major, I had to read this story. It is, as I said, a famous story and one I should know...after all, I have spent many days over the course of my undergraduate career in a classroom with a copy of David's neoclassical painting Oath of the Horatii. However, this story was introduced in the context of "virtues" and I was required to read it with the intent to find multiple evidence of Roman virtues in the story (implying, of course, that virtue is obviously in the story).
I was frustrated. Not only did this man kill his sister, but his father...her father sanctioned his act and dishonored/disowned his own daughter in front of the entire court, proclaiming that she was wrong and disloyal. What virtue could be found in this story by any of these major characters?
No matter how frustrated I was at the story, it was little to the disgust and disappointment I felt later when I brought my concerns up in class.
Promptly after I expressed my thoughts on the story and the lack of virtue, nearly everyone in the class discarded my concerns with the comment, "Well, that's just because you're looking at it from a 21st century point of view. He was perfectly justified in his actions because of their society back then." Thence they built up his character and pointed out all of the sister's wrongs, even including the fact that her loyalties were to her brother and father, not to her fiancee since they weren't married yet (patriarchal much?).

Looking back, I've realized that my classmates (most of whom were women) and my professor were actually wrong.
I may have been reading the story from a different societal context, but that does not validate the brother or invalidate my comment. Far from it, in fact. There are societies and peoples, even today, where the familial and governmental virtues, systems, and ideals don't differ from that of Livy's story. Yes, much of the Middle East is this way, as well as China. But there is also evidence closer to home. Men may not kill their sisters or other women, but many, enough to be notable and to exist within every woman's life experience, certainly do get angry when women don't fit into their ideologies and give them the support their pride demands. Examples include the boy who gets rebuked and teased for being bested by a girl, the girl who is told to mind her place, the man who doesn't listen to the concerns and advice of a woman coworker or relative, the travails that are scorned or dismissed because it's just a woman being emotional, and the women who are abused emotionally and physically because they displeased or "disrespected" the men. More often than not, women cannot be as smart or smarter than a man and cannot have equal say in matters men consider their territory without some resistance (whether passively aggressive or destructively abusive) from men.

The social needs and background should never excuse the man. If the news aired a story of a man from, say, Iran, who slaughtered his sister because of the same situation in the myth, the vast majority of the viewers would be shocked and devastated no matter how different the man's social paradigm was. This isn't because we are from the 21st century. In fact, social conditions in many parts of the world as far as women are concerned are not much different from Rome, but violence done to women in those parts of the world shock the rest of us. Why, then, is it acceptable to read Livy's account and accept/justify the man's actions? There is no difference between the sister's situation and placing the blame on raped women because they "asked for it." The precise century of the event, whether 600 B.C. or A.D. 2016, makes no difference.