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Women: Although membership in these classes was dominated by the same families over many generations, the classes themselves were defined according to male activities rather than birth. Women's place in these classes was therefore somewhat problematic. However, there came to be a customary acceptance that women belonged to the social class of their fathers and then of their husbands, although the women had no special dress that distinguished their status. This female participation in social status began to crystallize and formalize under Augustus, who explicitly included the daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of senators in his law prohibiting members of the senatorial class from contracting legal marriages with freedpeople. ""

""Women: Since the lower classes were not defined by male activities, there was no problem with including women; female and male children were automatically members of the social class of their parents (except for freedpeople, since only one generation could be “freed”). If the parents were Roman citizens and had contracted a legal Roman marriage, the children followed the social status of their father (i.e., they were Roman citizens). However, in the case of Latins, foreigners, and slaves, children took the social status of their mother, even if their father was a freeborn Roman citizen. ""

""Lex Voconia (The Voconian Law) was a law established in ancient Rome in 169 BC.

Introduced by Q. Voconius Saxa with support from Cato the Elder, Voconius being tribune of the people in that year, this law prohibited those who owned property valued at 100,000 asses (or perhaps sesterces) from making a woman their heir. This particular limit was not arbitrary but was apparently the traditional property qualification for admission to the highest class in the Comitia Centuriata, and thus the minimum qualification for the Equestrian Order. In addition, it prohibited extraordinary legacies in a will of a greater value than the inheritance of the ordinary heirs. This intention of this legislation according to Gellius was sumptuary in that it limited the wealth available to women, who were presumed to expend it on useless luxury goods. It was evaded by means of avoiding registration in the census, which entailed the loss of some civil rights, or by the common Roman form of trust known as a "fideicommissum". The second provision was essentially voided by the Lex Falcidia. Legislation under Augustus, in particular the Lex Papia Poppaea relaxed the first provision as well, granting full inheritance rights to married women who were mothers of three children (if born free) or of four children (if a freedwoman).""

In the ability to become hiers to a certain extent women were able to own and have rights to property which put them in accordance to the "commons". Sometimes very wealthy women though not rightful citizens had far more power and influence. So in effect they were citizens in all but name. Wives were accorded the same status as thier husbands and as such were granted the same viable powers vested within the husband.