§34.3.1quid enim, si hoc expugnaverint, non temptabunt? recensete omnia muliebria iura, quibus licentiam earum adligaverint maiores vestri per quaeque eas subiecerint viris; quibus omnibus constrictas vix tamen continere potestis.
For what will they not attempt if they carry this point? Review all the laws concerning women, by which your ancestors bound their license and through which they subjected them to their husbands; even though fettered by all of these, you can still scarcely keep them within bounds.
§34.3.2quid? si carpere singula et extorquere et exaequari ad extremum viris patiemini, tolerabiles vobis eas fore creditis? extemplo, simul pares esse coeperint, §34.3.3superiores erunt.
What? If you permit them to tear away and extort them one by one, and to be made equal in the end to their husbands, do you believe they will be tolerable to you? Immediately, as soon as they begin to be equal, they will be superior.
at hercule ne quid novum in eas rogetur recusant, non ius sed iniuriam deprecantur, §34.3.4immo, ut, quam accepistis iussistis suffragiis vestris legem, quam usu tot annorum et experiendo comprobastis, hanc ut abrogetis, id est ut unam tollendo legem ceteras infirmetis.
But, by Hercules, they are not refusing that any new law be proposed against them; they are not deprecating a right, but an injury— nay, rather, they are begging that you repeal this law which you accepted and enacted by your votes, and which you have approved by the use and experience of so many years; that is, that by destroying one law you may weaken all the rest.
§34.3.5nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est; id modo quaeritur, si maiori parti et in summam prodest.
No law is sufficiently convenient for everyone; this only is asked, if it is beneficial to the greater part and on the whole.
si, quod cuique privatim officiet ius, id destruet ac demolietur, quid attinebit universos rogare leges, quas mox abrogare, in quos latae sunt,
If every law which hurts anyone privately is to be destroyed and demolished, what will it avail to propose laws for the whole community, which those against whom they were passed can soon repeal?
§34.3.6possint? volo tamen audire, quid sit, propter quod matronae consternatae procucurrerint in publicum ac vix foro se et contione abstineant.
Yet I wish to hear what the reason is for which the matrons have run out into public in excitement and can scarcely keep themselves from the Forum and the assembly.
§34.3.7ut captivi ab Hannibale redimantur parentes, viri, liberi, fratres earum? procul abest absitque semper talis fortuna rei publicae;
Is it that their parents, husbands, children, and brothers, as captives, may be ransomed from Hannibal? Far be such a fortune from the republic, and may it ever be far!
§34.3.8sed tamen, cum fuit, negastis hoc piis precibus earum.
And yet, when it was so, you refused this to their pious prayers.
at non pietas nec sollicitudo pro suis, sed religio congregavit eas: matrem Idaeam a Pessinunte ex Phrygia venientem accepturae sunt.
But it was not piety nor concern for their loved ones, but religious duty that gathered them: they are about to receive the Idaean Mother coming from Pessinus in Phrygia.
quid honestum dictu saltem seditioni praetenditur muliebri?
What pretext, at least respectable to mention, is put forward for this female sedition?
§34.3.9“ut auro et purpura fulgamus” inquit, “ut carpentis festis profestisque diebus, velut triumphantes de lege victa et abrogata et captis et ereptis suffragiis vestris, per urbem vectemur; ne ullus modus sumptibus, ne luxuriae sit. ”
'That we may glitter with gold and purple,' she says, 'that we may be carried through the city in carriages on festive and common days, as if triumphing over a conquered and repealed law and over your votes captured and wrested from you; that there may be no limit to our expenses, no limit to our luxury.'