In February, I posted this little rumination on the origin of the term "chairman". Then I came across SB 351 introduced late last month by the California Senate Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions. Currently, Sections 5213, 7213 and 9213 of the California Corporations Code each provides that a corporation must have "a chair of the board, who may be given the title chair of the board, chairperson of the board, chairman of the board, or chairwoman of the board or a president or both, a secretary, a treasurer or a chief financial officer or both, and any other officers with any titles and duties as shall be stated in the bylaws or determined by the board and as may be necessary to enable it to sign instruments." SB 351 would amend these statutes to provide that the "chair of the board" may also be given the title of "chair, chairperson, chairman or chairwomen". No, that is not a typo on my part, the bill would authorize the chair of the board to be given the title of "chairwomen".
I've never heard of a corporation that had more than one chairpersons of the board (male or female) at the same time. Occasionally, corporations do appoint co-presidents and this leads to the question what if they deadlock? The easiest way to avoid the problem is to clearly define their respective areas of responsibility and make each sovereign of his or her defined areas. The ancient Romans had two consuls but addressed the problem in a different, and sometimes more disastrous manner. In the city, the consuls presided in alternate months. The great Roman Lawyer, Marcus Tullius Cicero described the origin of this practice:
Itaque Publicola lege illa de provocatione perlata statim securis de fascibus demi iussit postridieque sibi collegam Sp. Lucretium subrogavit suosque ad eum, quod erat maior natu, lictores transire iussit instituitque primus, ut singulis consulibus alternis mensibus lictores praeirent, ne plura insignia essent inperii in libero populo quam in regno fuissent.
And so [Lucius] Publicola [one of the first consuls], having carried the law concerning appeal immediately ordered that the axes be removed from the fasces and the next day proposed Sp. Lucretius as his co-consul, whom because he was older he ordered to go first, so that the lictors preceded each consul in alternate months, lest there would be more insignias of command in a free people than had been in the monarchy.
M. Cicero, De Republica 2:55 (my translation). This passage may need some explanation. The fasces was essentially a bundle of wooden rods that symbolized authority in ancient Rome. The inclusion of a blade meant that the official had the power of life or death, but this power was reserved to the people in the city of Rome. Thus, the blade had to be removed when the official was in the city. The fasces was carried by officials known as lictors, with the number of lictors varying based on the office. A consul had twelve lictors, a dictator had 24. If you look, you will see the symbolism of the fasces is still widely used. A fasces with a blade appeared on the back of the Mercury dime. A set of crossed fasces appears at the base of the Seal of the United States Senate and at the top of the Colorado State Seal. You can even see a sculpted figure in the west pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court building (above the word "under") holding a fasces (with a blade). Finally, the word "fascist" is derived from the word Latin word fascis (which is the singular form of fasces).
The Roman consuls also commanded the armies, but in the field they alternated every day. This rather impractical procedure is widely credited as the cause of Rome's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C.E. In that battle, Hannibal defeated the combined consular army of Varro and Paullus.
