Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
30.
_Wherefore do they at_ Rome, _when they bring a new espoused bride home to the house of her husband_, _force her to say these words unto her spouse_: Where you are _Cajus_, I will be _Caja_? IS it to testifie by these words, that she entreth immediately to communicate with him in all goods, and to be a governesse and commaunder in the house as well as he? for it implieth as much, as if she should say; where you are lord and master, I will be lady and mistres. Now these names they used as being common, and such as came first to hand, and for no other reason else: like as the Civill lawiers use ordinarily these names, _Cajus_, _Seius_, _Lucius_, and _Titius_: the Philosophers in their schooles, _Dion_ and _Theon_. Or peradventure it is in regard of _Caia Cæcilia_ a beautifull and vertuous lady, who in times past, espoused one of the sonnes of king _Tarquinius_: of which dame there is yet to be seene even at this day one image of brasse, within the temple of the god _Sanctus_: and there likewise in old time, her slippers, her distaffe and spindels laid up for to bee seene: the one to signifie that she kept the house well, and went not ordinarily abroad; the other to shew how she busied herselfe at home.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.