The Implications of Women’s Late Entry to the Bar and Their Treason against the Order of Nature: A Judicial Analysis

During the Roman Empire, two women Carfinia and Calphurnia, offended the sensibilities of the Courts. Carfinia vexed a praetor with her pleading and Calphurnia, pleading before the Senate, lost her case and in an act of extreme contempt of Court, turned her back to the judges, lifted her robes and displayed her derriere (her buttocks, her rear-side or her behind). As a result of the actions of Carfinia and Calphurnia, women were excluded entirely from rendering any Court or public service on account of their temperament. Being decommissioned for centuries from the legal profession, women encountered a heavy backlog and their entry, after much fighting, was not received as a welcome invitation by their male counterparts.

Aim: Law was seen to be a male prerogative and the common rationale had been that women have never been admitted to the bar. And, over and above this contention of the legal fraternity, patriarchal sentiments portray that the constitution of the family organisation and divine ordinance dictates that the domestic sphere is that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. This study aims to dispel such notion and tried to forge an isonomy or achieved gender equality between the sexes. Its target audience is legal practitioners.

Methodology: This research overwhelmingly dictates or hinges upon a theoretical model. Law literature like textbooks and Court cases of years’ back and of present interpretations have provided the tenor for this paper and an array of internet sources on gender roles vis-à-vis the practice of law proved to be useful.

Main Findings: Patriarchal sentiments and the perception that law is a male construct have barred women from entering the legal profession. Apart from their presumed incapacity in law, women were thought to be emotional rather than rational and logical and this perception attests to their exclusion from the legal practice.

Conclusions: Patriarchal contentions about the constitution of the family and divine ordinance dictate that women belong to the domestic sphere, where they executed the nurturing duties of wife and mother. The research bolstered the notion that the aforesaid sentence portrays the fact that that is the law of the Creator and women infringed this law when they militate against it by entering the legal profession. Patriarchal notions regard women’s intention to enter the legal profession as treason against the order of nature.

Recommendations: Sentiments as to the exclusion of women form the legal profession in modern day context have regarded women’s exclusion from the legal profession as anachronistic, out-dated and even unreasonable. And such sentiments will never succeed constitutional scrutiny of human rights. The socio-economic reality also determines that the implications of a decommissioned woman will have a negative effect on family life in particular and an adverse effect on the economy in general.