Chapter Summary

The main elements of a Roman’s status were liberty (the status of being free rather than slave), citizenship (the status of being a Roman citizen) and family (membership of a Roman family). All of these had implications for a person’s legal capacity, and liberty and family are the subject matter of Chapters 6 and 7. There were, however, other ways in which a person’s legal capacity could be affected. The most important of these was marriage (considered in Chapter 8), but there were others. We have seen some of these in this chapter.