Marriage in ancient Rome

The Roman Mariage ( matrimonium ) is a ritual ceremony . There exists several ( ius conubii ) by the company are:

Cum manu where the wife is placed under the legal authority of her husband, who declines himself in three forms:

the confarreatio
the coemptio , purchasing procedure symbolic system of the wife in the presence of five witnesses
the per usum , with removal symbolic system of the woman (Slavic cf rite) and validation of the marriage at the end of one year

Sine manu where the wife is not dependant on her husband.

Grooms

The lawful age of the marriage was fixed at 12 years for the girls and 14 years for the boys. To marry is a civic duty and the single people are underprivileged for example they are struck special taxes. Only the soldiers are excluded from it for not that they can regret another situation. However they obtain this right under the Empire of Septime Sévère. To leave the religious framework of the marriage, such as for example making an adultery, it was to revolt against the gods of the hearth. Once widowed or divorced, the woman returned in the residence of the father always to honor the gods with the hearth. On the assumption that the woman had or chose to remain alone, it did not depend any more of the gods on the hearth and consequently could make to the same things only one free man.

At richest, the marriage was in general arranged for company names and economic. The husband, supposed to take care of his wife, was in general a little older and of a social condition equal or higher than that of the wife. With their marriage, they did not change a gentilice. The Monogamie was of rule.

Ceremony

The ceremonies follow very precise rites. During the confarreatio , the husbands eat a cake of German wheat ( panic grass farreus ) in the presence of the flamen dialis and of the Grand Pontiff which devotes the marriage.

History of the marriage

The weddings " justes" , in the beginning, were not recognized that with the Patricien S. the Loi of the twelve tables definite these marriages. In -445, the Lex canuleia grants to plebeian the right to practice this ceremony at the time of marriages collate, i.e. between patricians and plebeian. Gradually the Sine manu supplants the Cum manu . This ceremony were supported by the patricians who could thus make break the marriage of their daughter with plebeian, if necessary. This situation is abolished only after the 2nd century.

Divorce

The cause of the first divorce, that of some Spurius Carvilius Ruga, according to Denys d' Halicarnasse was sterility towards -230. However the Loi of the Twelve Tables of the IV E regulates already the divorce. It is estimated that this one was codified in the Années -600

Note

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