Doctor Curmudgeon “The Quality of Mercy”
By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist
It was somewhere between 1596 and 1599 that William Shakespeare wrote his play, The Merchant of Venice. In those days, late 16th to early 17th centuries, it was almost impossible for a woman to be a lawyer.
Portia, the female protagonist, had to disguise herself as a man in order to present herself as a lawyer.
Things have been tough for centuries for women lawyers.
Way back around 264 BC, around the time of the first Punic War (fights between Rome and the ancient city, Carthage), women had no commercial, political, or legal rights.
So many Roman men died in the Punic Wars that women were able to take advantage of the shortage of men and enter professions from which they had previously been barred.
Somewhere around the second half of the first century BC, Caia Afrania became known for her skills of oration. She was not officially a lawyer, and not allowed to attend law school. But she defended several women successfully in front of Roman courts.
The prejudicial gossip of the time simply labelled her as “quarrelsome,” “impudent,” and erroneously described her as sounding like a barking dog.
March 15, 44 BC and Julius Caesar is assassinated.
It was a messy time of political turmoil in Rome. The Empire was declining. A brand new government formed and, in their infinite wisdom, decided to impose a tax on women. This was to fund the cost of civil war that occurred after Caesar’s assassination.
The new political leaders of Rome, Octavius, Mark Anthony, and Lepidus, decided that the properties of the 1400 richest women should be taxed to pay for these wars.
Then along came a roman matron, Hortensia. She was born into a wealthy family and benefitted from an education that most women of her time could not receive. And with the influence of her father, who was a famed orator, she was able to plead her case before the Roman Senate. That speech is one of the earliest recorded speeches ever made by a woman.
Her brilliant oratory made such a convincing argument that the Senate repealed the tax on women.
In her speech, she said, “You’ve never allowed us power and now you want to tax us when we don’t have a say? You tell us we’re at war? When have we not been?…We could give you our jewels out of the kindness of our hearts as our mothers before us when we had to defend out land from enemies, but the capital you want to take from us, you’ll use it just to go to war with each other.”
Portia is one of the first fictional female lawyers. Shakespeare wrote of her living in Venice, a city in northeastern Italy. She was known as a symbol of wisdom and said:
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It I twice blest:
It blesseth him that vies and him that takes.”
Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com
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