CASE 10: Legal Impediments
D. 23.2.44 pr. (Paulus libro primo ad legem Iuliam et Papiam)
Lege Iulia ita cavetur: “Qui senator est quive filius neposve ex filio proneposve ex filio nato cuius eorum est erit, ne quis eorum sponsam uxoremve sciens dolo malo habeto libertinam aut eam, quae ipsa cuiusve pater materve artem ludicram facit fecerit.
neve senatoris filia neptisve ex filio proneptisve ex nepote filio nato libertino eive, qui ipse cuiusve pater materve artem ludicram facit fecerit, sponsa nuptave sciens dolo malo esto neve quis eorum dolo malo sciens sponsam uxoremve eam habeto.”Tituli ex Corpore Ulpiani 13.2
Ceteri autem ingenui prohibentur ducere lenam et a lenone lenave manumissam et in adulterio deprehensam et iudicio publico damnatam et quae artem ludicram fecerit: adicit Mauricianus et a senatu damnatam.
(Paul in the first book on the lex Iulia et Papia)
The lex Iulia provides: “Now and in the future, let no one who is a senator, or who is or will be a senator’s son or a grandson from a son or a great-grandson from a grandson born to a son, knowingly and intentionally take as his betrothed or his wife a freedwoman or a woman who herself or whose father or mother acts or will act on the stage. And let no senator’s daughter, or a granddaughter from a son or a great-granddaughter from a grandson born to a son, knowingly and intentionally be betrothed or married to a freedman or to a man who himself or whose father or mother acts or will act on the stage; and let none of these persons intentionally and knowingly have her as his betrothed or wife.”
(Excerpts from Ulpian’s Writings)
class=a3 style='text-indent:0cm;line-height:125%'>But other freeborn males are forbidden to take (as wife) a prostitute, a procuress, a woman manumitted by a pimp or procuress, a woman taken in adultery, a woman condemned in a public trial, and one who acts on the stage. Mauricianus added also a woman condemned by the Senate.l.The Augustan Marriage Legislation.
In his effort to reestablish Roman morality, the Emperor Augustus (reign: 31 B.C. to A.D. 14) had a series of laws enacted that created additional legal barriers to marriage, barriers that were based on social prejudice; and these barriers were much elaborated by later emperors. The details are controversial in part because our sources are contradictory; but you should be able to make out the main lines of prohibitions, as well as the likely reasons for them. Marriages in contravention of these laws were not at first void (at least for senatorial marriages; that happened later, under Marcus Aurelius: Paul, D. 23.2.16 pr.), but the couple did not enjoy the benefits that the Augustan legislation assigned to married couples (see Tit. Ulp. 16.2: no right to inherit from one another). On the benefits, see also Case 12.