Probity

Probity (pronounced proh-bi-tee or prob-i-tee)

Integrity and uprightness; honesty.

1505-1515: From the Middle English probite (tried virtue or integrity, strict honesty), from the Middle French probité, from probitatem (nominative probitās (uprightness, honesty), from probus (virtuous, good, excellent, honest).  The construct of the Latin probitās was prob(us) (upright; worthy, good) + itās (the -itas suffix was from the Proto-Italic -itāts & -otāts (-tās added to i-stems or o-stems, later used freely) and ultimately from the primitive Indo-European -tehats.  The noun plural is probities.  Synonyms include (variously according to context) godliness, goodness, honor, righteousness, saintliness, uprightness & virtue; the antonym which best catches the sense is probably wickedness.

Quia suam uxorem etiam suspicione vacare vellet

Pompeia was (probably the second) wife of Julius Caesar (100–44 BC; Roman general & dictator 49-44 BC) who Caesar married in 67 BC.  In 63 BC Caesar was elected to the position of Pontifex Maximus (head priest of the Roman state church), a perk of which was a grand house on the Via Sacra and it was there in 62 BC that Pompeia hosted the festival of the Bona Dea (the good goddess), an event no man was allowed to attend.  However a young man called Publius Clodius Pulcher, disguised as a woman, managed to enter the house, his purpose the seduction of Pompeia.

Discovered early in the event, he was arrested and Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia.  The young man was prosecuted for sacrilege but when called as a witness, Caesar disavowed any knowledge of the events and declined to offer any evidence against Clodius who was therefore acquitted.  Pompeia assured her husband her honor hadn’t been violated which her husband believed but when asked by the prosecutor why therefore he'd divorced her, Caesar's answer was that his wife couldn't be even under suspicion and there must be no doubt as to the probity of Caesar's wife.

From this passed into use the phrase attributed to Julius Caesar by the Greek (later Roman) historian Plutarch (circa 46–circa 124): quia suam uxorem etiam suspicione vacare vellet (because he should wish even his wife to be free from suspicion) which is translated usually as "because Caesar's wife must be above suspicion", and the expression of womanly virtue therefore being understood as "acting with the probity of Caesar's wife".

Many subsequent Caesars have benefited from the probity of their wives, their rectitude not always appreciated or reciprocated.