According to the marriage legislation of the emperor Augustus, widows were to remarry within two (or three) years of their husband's death (and divorcees within eighteen months of divorce).8

Those who did not were not in compliance with the law and therefore could not inherit from people not related to them in the sixth degree [Chapter 2, Part I.B]. In 320, Constantine abolished the Augustan penalties on the unmarried and childless, thus removing the legal pressure on widows to remarry [Chapter 2, Part II.B]. Late Roman law reinforced sanctions against remarriage within a short period of time, and restricted the rights of remar­ried mothers over any property they had inherited from their husbands.