Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

== Women and religion ==
{{see also|Women in ancient Rome#Religious life}}

Roman women were present at most festivals and cult observances. Some rituals specifically required the presence of women, but their active participation was limited. As a rule women did not perform animal sacrifice, the central rite of most major public ceremonies.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 297.</ref> In addition to the public priesthood of the Vestals, some cult practices were reserved for women only. The rites of the [[Bona Dea]] excluded men entirely.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 296–7. This exclusion prompted prurient speculation on the part of men, and a scandalous, impious intrusion by [[Publius Clodius Pulcher]].</ref> Because women enter the public record less frequently than men, their religious practices are less known, and even family cults were headed by the ''paterfamilias''. A host of deities, however, are associated with motherhood. [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]], [[Lucina (goddess)|Lucina]], and [[List of Roman birth and childhood deities|specialized divine attendants]] presided over the life-threatening act of giving birth and the perils of caring for a baby at a time when the infant mortality rate was as high as 40 percent.

Literary sources vary in their depiction of women's religiosity: some represent women as paragons of Roman virtue and devotion, but also inclined by temperament to self-indulgent religious enthusiasms, novelties and the seductions of ''superstitio''.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1, 297. ''Ibid'' 217, citing the obituary of a woman whose virtues included "''religio'' without ''superstitio''" ([[Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae|ILS]] 8393.30-31 of "Turia").</ref>