MARRIAGE IN OLD ROME
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public policy, such as the law which forbade The widower was expected to marry again immediately after his wife's death; widows, the governor of a province marrying a na on the contrary, were forbidden to take to tive of the province. Under the later Em pire concubinage was so restricted that a themselves a fresh consort until the former man could not have at the same time a wife one had been with the shades for at least and a concubine, nor even two concubines, six months, and this period was in later and the children could be legitimatized and days extended to a year; if she did not thus so placed on an equality with the offspring wait, the father who made the marriage, the husband who took the widow, and even the of a legal marriage. widow herself, were deemed infamous By Between concubinage and regular mar degrees, however, the laws improved in this riage there seems to have been no differ ence except what rested in the intention of matter, and the Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea the parties; if there was no affectio maritalis, encouraged second marriages, and even en no intention to .treat the woman as a wife, joined them upon widows under fifty; and she was not a wife but a concubine. Of the Institutes ordained that when the widow course the question of intention was seldom, was poor and without dowry she could in if ever, left doubtful. Generally speaking, herit from her husband one-fourth of his estate (if there were three children), and an instrument fixing the amount settled re spectively by the husband and the wife was a full masculine share if there were none; drawn up, and the consent was publicly this provision of course assisted her matri given in the presence of friends. And as monial chances. But when Christianity concubinage was a dishonorable state, the triumphed in the Empire there was a retro presumption in favor of marriage, when the grade movement; second marriages were woman was of honest parentage and of frowned upon; Constantine returned to the good character, was very strong. To con old ideas of primitive Rome, and Theodosius cubinage none of the incidents of marriage and his successors went so far as to punish attached; no dos could be asked for, and no widows marrying a second time by making donation was made by the man, and the them forfeit all the lucra nuptialia of the first children were not in the power of the marriage, which had to be paid over to her father. (Sander's Justinian, Lib. i, Tit. X children by the first husband. (Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, p. 261.) Sec. 12.) Even a widow was not a free and inde By the laws of Valentinian and Gratian, pendent woman. If she had been under the widows under twenty-five could not marry authority of her husband at his death, her again without their parents' consent. sons, or perhaps her step-sons, acted for As to widowers, Charondas, of Sicily, or her, they being her nearest agnates (kins dained that those who cared so little for the men subject to the same patria potestas) . If happiness of their children as to place a she had no son or step-son, then the next step-mother over them, should be excluded nearest agnate became her guardian, and from the councils of the State. failing any such connection the gens (family) One of the latest Roman poets said, "To to which the desolate widow belonged ap love a wife when living is a pleasure; to love pointed the tutor. (Muirhead, p. 124.) her when dead is an act of religion." For a long time in Rome the widows who did not marry were particularly honored. KINGSTON, ONT., June, 1906.
