A The importance of status
Roman society was always highly status-conscious, so it is not surprising that many legal enactments and juristic writings deal with the subject of status.
The highest status was held by members of senatorial families. Though membership in the Senate was not automatically inherited, the wives, children, and grandchildren (by their sons) of senators did possess senatorial status. This endowed them with greater dignitas (status, prestige) than other citizens, and made them subject to certain privileges and restrictions (such as the ban on marriage with former slaves; see Chapter 3, Part I.B). By the end of the second century, many senators came from the provinces rather than Italy.Men of senatorial status held the title of clarissimi (“most splendid”). By the second century the wives and daughters of senators were given the title clarissima femina (“most splendid woman”). This title, usually abbreviated “c.f.,” appears beginning in the second century on Latin inscriptions which commemorate senatorial women.142
D.50.16.100 (Ulpian): We ought to accept as “respectable persons” clarissimi persons of both sexes, and likewise those who enjoy senatorial distinctions.
D.1.5.9 (Papinian): In many sections of our law the condition of women is lower than that of males.
D.1.9.1 (Ulpian): No one doubts that a man of consular rank (vir consularis) is certainly to be placed before a woman of consular rank (consularis femina). But whether a man of prefectorial rank (vir praefectorius) is to be placed before a woman of consular rank must be determined.
I would think that he is, because there is greater status (dignitas) in the male sex. Moreover, we say that the wives of consular men are consular women. Saturninus adds mothers (of consular men) also, but this has neither been noted anywhere nor ever accepted.A vir consularis was one who had reached the consulship, the highest senatorial office. A vir praefectorius is presumably one who had held one of the top prefectures, e.g., the praetorian prefecture or the governorship of a province such as Egypt. He would be an equestrian, but still one of the top men in the Empire. Only a few women are known to have borne the title consularis femina, which was more prestigious than clarissima femina [Chastagnol 1979].
It was clearly a great honor to be a clarissima, and women who had at one time enjoyed that title were anxious to retain it even if they married a non-senatorial man:
D.1.9.12 (Ulpian): Women previously married to a man of consular rank are accustomed to request from the emperor, though very rarely, that if they have married again to a man of lesser status they may nevertheless remain of consular status: as I know the emperor Antoninus (Caracalla) granted to his own cousin Julia Mamaea.
D.1.9.8 (Ulpian): Women married to clarissimi persons are included in the term “clarissimae persons.” The daughters of senators are not included in the name “clarissimae women” except those who have been allotted clarissimi men (as husbands); for husbands impart clarissimate status to women, but parents (only impart status) until they (daughters) have been joined in marriage with a plebeian. Therefore a woman will be clarissima for as long as she is married to a senator or clarissimus or, (as long as) having separated from him, she has not married another man of lower status (dignitas).
This rule, whose date is uncertain,143 caused some concern to the daughters or former wives of senatorial men, who wished to retain their title even after marrying someone outside the senatorial order:
Cod. Just. 12.1.1, 222-235
Emperor Alexander Augustus to Severiana:
If, as you claim, your grandfather had consular rank and your father had been a praetor, and you married men of senatorial status (clarissimi), not of private status, you retain your family's splendor (claritas).
Though only one woman, Severiana, is addressed in this rescript, the use of the second person plural in all the verbs indicates that more than one person was petitioning the emperor. Severiana evidently was writing on behalf of her sister(s) as well as of herself.
Cod. Just. 5.4.10, 286-293
Emperors Diocletian and Maximian Augusti to Paulina:
Since you say that you were not born from a senator father but took the name of clarissima femina because of a marriage contracted with a senator, if you afterwards were allotted a husband of the second rank (i.e. an equestrian) as a husband, you have given up the senatorial distinction which was bestowed on you as a benefit from your husband and have been reduced to your former status.
Despite the ruling, it appears that in the third century some clarissimae who married equestrians were able to retain their senatorial status, including several Christian women [Chastagnol 1979; cf. Evans Grubbs 1995, 79]. This may be because the rule was abrogated under Alexander Severus or slightly later [Chastagnol 1982, 258—9; Raepsaet-Charlier 1993, 158—9] or frequently waived in the case of senators’ daughters. Paulina, to whom this rescript applies the rule, was not a clarissima by birth, and so did not receive the exemption that some senators’ daughters evidently did [Chastagnol 1982].
A person’s forum was the place where he or she would be tried in court.
Clarissimi had the privilege of having Rome (or, in the late Empire, Constantinople) as their forum, rather than a provincial court. Senators’ wives would have that privilege, but lose it if they remarried a non-senator. The following law repeats the principle found in third-century rescripts that women follow their clarissimus husband’s status, but lose it if they remarry:Cod. Just. 12.1.13, 10 November, 392
Emperors Valentinian (II), Theodosius (I) and Arcadius Augusti to Marcianus, Count of the Orient:
We raise up women by the honor of their husbands, we ennoble them by their family and we determine their legal forum and change their legal residence (domicilium) on the basis of their (the husbands') person. If, however, they have later been allotted a husband of a lesser rank, deprived of their former status (dignitas), they shall follow the condition of their later husband.
Given at Constantinople on the fourth day before the Ides of November in the second consulship of Arcadius Augustus and the consulship of Rufinus.144