In thinking about how social control was reproduced over time and space, the problem of agency comes into focus – especially when we consider the position of women. Women had distinctive problems of access to rights and resources in the late ancient world. The constraints imposed on wives and daughters meant that their autonomy in domestic environments was compromised both domestically and in the public sphere. Women had distinctive problems of access to rights and resources, and yet it was a well-known fact that they had their own way of seeing things, and sometimes of helping each other behind the scenes.