MATRIMONIUM

Roman Laws of Marriage: A Timeline

• Lex Duodecim Tabularum (The Law of the Twelve Tables) (c. 450 BCE)
  
  • This earliest known codification of Roman law (Latin, English) was a compilation and promulgation of rules of existing practice. By tradition, it was drawn up by an appointed Commission of Ten (Decemviri legibus scribundis), passed into law by the Comitia Centuriata, and inscribed on 12 bronze tablets which were posted in the Roman Forum, accessible to all. Although the tablets were destroyed in the Gallic invasion of Rome (c. 390 BCE), the laws were known and in effect until the early 6th century CE, when the Emperor Justinian ordered the collection and enactment of Roman law known as the Corpus Iuris Civilis. The Law of the Twelve Tables has been variously reconstructed in modern times from references in juridical and literary texts. The two injunctions, Tabula VI.6 and IX.1, seem to indicate that marriage was a source of concern for the Romans, principally for the preservation of property. Manus marriage through usus, the outcome of continuous shared habitation for one year, parallels the formula of ownership of an object (see Tabula VI.5). Tabula XI, prohibiting marriage between the patrician and plebeian classes (see Cicero, De Republica II. 36-7 [here, 61-63]), may have been added to protect the patrician class from dispersal of its landed wealth.
• Lex Canuleia de Conubio Patrum et Plebis (445 BCE)
  
  • The law proposed by the Tribunus plebis Gaius Canuleius and supported by the populace legalized marriage between patricians and plebeians. A concession that was made by the patricians early in the conflict of the orders after a public exchange of bitter speeches (see Livy, AUC IV.1-6), it successfully reversed the prohibition incorporated in the recently promulgated Law of the Twelve Tables.
• Lex Voconia (169 BCE)
  
  • The unpopular Voconian Law was presented by the Tribunus plebis Q. Voconius Saxa with the support of Cato the Elder. It forbade the highest class of citizens (minimally at the census level of equites) from making women, wives or virgins, heredes (heirs and executors); as legatee, a wife could receive no more than half her husband's property, thus limiting her independent access to money. Containing internal contradictions, it was easily evaded in practice. Augustus' legislation left the law in force, but allowed women who had borne children to inherit.
• Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BCE)
  
  • The law concerning marriage among the social orders, particularly the senatorial, was proposed by Augustus himself, who later claimed he had revived ancient custom (see Res Gestae 8.5: Legibus novis me auctore latis; English). Consisting of some 35 chapters devoted to prohibitions and incentives to marry, it stipulated penalties for non-compliance through taxation and inability to inherit, and offered encouragement through privileges for women as well as men who were married and had children . While Roman citizens of all classes were forbidden to marry women of infamia, a category that included prostitutes, performers, adultresses and criminals, the law forbade senators and their descendants to marry freed(wo)men and also children of performers. It further enabled marriage by disallowing obstacles raised by others, especially patroni and patresfamiliarum, and by requiring men and women between certain ages to be married. Unpopular and subject to abuses, its precepts came to be revisited in the Lex Papia-Poppaea of 9 CE. The law survives through extrapolation from the Digesta and Roman historians. Horace's reference to the Augustan legislation as lege marita in line 20 of the Carmen Saeculare (Latin, English) secures its date to prior to 17 BCE.
• Lex Iulia de adulteriis (18-17 BCE)
  
  • The law against adultery, considered part of Augustus' marriage legislation, transformed what was traditionally a family matter into a civil crime. It originally consisted of at least 9 chapters in which the crimes of adulterium and stuprum were described and the punishments exacted on violators were detailed (see Paulus, Sententiae 2.26). Horace's Carmina 4.5, addressed to Augustus on campaign in Gaul (16-13 BCE), praises the effectiveness (casta domus) of this legislation (lines 20-14).
• Lex Aelia Sentia (4 CE)
  
  • This consular law which was intended to regulate manumission of slaves had the unintended effect of fostering marriage and the production of legitimate children among the lower orders. It was presented by Augustus to the Assemblies for ratification. While it mandated that slaves had to be a minimum of 30 years of age and the master a minimum of 20 for formal manumission, exception was made in the case of a master (not a member of a senatorial family) who wished to free his female slave in order to marry her, for the purpose of producing citizen children.
• Lex Papia-Poppaea (9 CE)
  
  • The senators for the year, M. Papius Mutilus and Q. Poppaeus Secundus, ironically both unmarried, proposed this law which is thought to have amended Augustus' marriage laws of 18 BCE. Often referred to as the Lex Iulia et Papia Poppaea, it survives only in quotation and commentary (context, with sources).
• (49 CE)
  
  • The Emperor Claudius obtained from the Senate a decree legalizing marriage between a paternal uncle and his niece, thus enabling him to marry Agrippina Minor (see Tacitus Annales XII.6-7; Suetonius, Divus Claudius 26.3). The decree, in force until late antiquity, did not apply to the ban on a maternal uncle's marriage to his neice.
• Senatusconsultum Claudianum (52 CE)
  
  • In Roman civil law, unions between free female citizens and slave men were regulated under the provisions of the Senatus Consultum Claudianum. It was enacted in A.D. 52, in the reign of the emperor Claudius, and was subjected to important modifications under Hadrian. In its late classical form, the SCC allotted the owner of the slave two responses to the union. He could permit the union and claim the woman as his liberta, or he could, following a formal procedure, enslave the woman and claim her subsequent offspring as his slaves too (see SENATUSCONSULTUM sv Claudianum).
• Rescriptum of Marcus Aurelius & Commodus ( 175-80 CE)
  
  • The Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus replied by letter to an individual petition concerning marriage; imperial replies to such petitions became law (see "Creation of the Principate" sv Rescriptum).
• Rescriptum of Septimius Severus & Caracalla (202-203 CE)
  
  • The Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla replied by letter to an individual petition concerning marriage, which was entered into the law.
• Constitutio Antoniniana (212 CE)
  
  • The Edict of the Emperor Caracalla (preserved in part here in Greek on a papyrus from Egypt) gave Roman citizenship to virtually all free inhabitants of the Empire, a first in human history. As a result, peregrini ("foreigners") had the privilege of ius conubium and were expected to satisfy the requirements of iustum matrimonium or suffer the consequences.
• Edict of Diocletian (295 CE)
  
  This law (see English translation from Codex Gregorianus), issued from Damascus by Diocletian or his junior tetrarch Galerius, reinscribed Roman marriage and law as supreme over local law and forbade marriage within close family.
• Theodosii Codex (438 CE)
  
  • This collection and edition of excerpts from all imperial laws since the time of Constantine I to his own time (312-437CE) was ordered by the Emperor Theodosius II (408-450 CE). The 16 books of his Codex did not include juristic writings, but rather collected together all the general laws of the emperors, even those no longer relevant. Sections on marriage can be found in Book III, Titles 4-16 (Latin). The Code is principally known for supporting Christianity as the official religion of the Empire.
• Corpus Iuris Civilis (527-565 CE)
  
  • The collection of all Roman laws and edicts still in force, compiled under the direction of his imperial questor Tribonian, was ordered by the Emperor Justinian I and the whole was enacted into law (Justinian's reign). Also referred to as the Code of Justinian, the collection was issued in three parts: the Codex Iustinianus (529 CE), in 12 books, contains imperial legal pronouncements and edicts from the time of Hadrian (117 CE); the Iustiniani Digesta or Pandects of Justinian (533 BCE), in 50 books, contains legal opinions from the 2nd and 3rd centuries by the jurists Marcianus, Paulus, Terentius Clemens, Celsus, Modestinus, Gaius, Papinianus, Marcellus, Ulpianus, and Macer; the Iustiniani Institutiones (533 CE) is a manual of legal principles. A fourth part, the Novellae Constitutiones (534-565), was added; it contained new laws that Justinian felt were required.

Ancient Sources for Roman Laws of Marriage

• Institutiones of Gaius (160 CE)
  
  • A commentary in four books on the law, written by the jurist Gaius. It was lost until 1816, when the scholar B.G. Niebuhr discovered a copy of the text in the chapter library in Verona, overwritten by works of St. Jerome. Book I (English/Latin; Latin) treats the law of persons and their status, with references to women and marriage.
• Regulae Ulpiani (3rd/4th century CE)
  
  • Also known as the Epitome or Tituli ex Corpore, this collection of the opinions of the famous jurist Gn. Domitius Annius Ulpianus was made after his death and survives in fragments (English; Latin). From 211-222 he wrote copiously and held public offices under the Emperors Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Severus Alexander. His opinions are frequently cited in Justinian's Digest.
• Pauli Sententiae (3rd/4th century CE)
  
  • This collection in five books of the opinions of the noted prolific jurist Julius Paulus Prudentissimus was made after his death ( English; Latin). A contemporary of Ulpian, he served under the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla as advisor, jurist, and prefect of the Praetorian guard. His commentary on marriage appears in Book II.19 (English). His work is frequently quoted in Justinian's Digest.
• Corpus Iuris Civilis (529, 533 CE)
  
  • This collection and edition of the varied sources in which current Roman law was preserved was ordered by the Emperor Justinian I. The edition consists of three parts: the Codex Justinianus, the Digesta and the Institutiones (Latin). These selections from the Codex (529 CE) contain legal pronouncements or edicts of the emperors from the time of Hadrian (117 CE) concerning marriage law and punishments; these selections from the Digest (533 CE) contain legal opinions on marriage law from the 2nd-3rd centuries by the jurists Marcianus, Paulus, Terentius Clemens, Celsus, Modestinus, Gaius, Papinianus, Marcellus, Ulpianus, and Macer; these selections on marriage from the Institutes (533 CE), a manual of legal principles, are based on the marriage laws in the Institutes of Gaius.

An excellent online site to consult for these corpora is The Roman Law Library by Y. Lassard & A. Koptev.

Submitted by Ann R. Raia, Professor Emerita, The College of New Rochelle
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Spring 2024