THE CONCEPT OF ADULTERY IN ROMAN LAW
Keywords:
Roman law, adultery, divorce, repudiation, Lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, Law of the Twelve Tables, Codex Justinianus, Codex Theodosianus, Greek papyri
Abstract
The subject of this paper is adultery in Roman law, which was considered as lawful cause (iusta causa) for unilateral divorce in all periods of Roman legal history. After his accession, Augustus enacted the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (18 BC) whereby divorce was made obligatory in the case of adultery. Since then, adultery was not only moral offence, but crime (crimen, ἔγκλημα), which was penalized by the state. Hence, adultery was not res privata but res publica, and continued to be regarded as such even in the legislations of Christian Emperors. Anyhow, there are fundamental differences between pre- Christian and Christian legislation concerning adultery and marriage, which are to be analyzed in the following text. Finally, I give explanation to the words adulterium and repudium, and correlate them with equivalents in Macedonian language in order to explain the nature of Roman law and Roman view on adultery.
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Coleman-Norton, P. R. (1952). The Twelve Tables. Princeton: Princeton University, Department of Classics.
Corpus iuris civilis. Volumen primum. Institutiones. (1928). Kruger, Paulus (Ed.). Berolini, MCMXXVIII.
Corpus iuris civilis. Volumen secundum. Codex Iustinianus. (1906). Kruger, Paulus (Ed.). Berolini, MCMVI.
Corpus iuris civilis. Volumen tertium. Novellae Iustiniani, recognovit. (1959). Schoel, Rudolfus (Ed.). Berolini, MCMLIX.
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Grubbs, Judith Evans. (2002). Women an d Law in the Roman Empire: A sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood. London and New York:
Routlegde.
Joksimović, Мilena Z. (2015). Terminologija preljube u Vulgati i njen društveni,
istorijski i kulturni kontekst [The terminology of adultery in the Vulgate and its social, historical and cultural context]: Doktoral dis. Beograd: Univerzitet u Beogradu, Filozofski fakultet.
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Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. 123-125.
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Perrin. London: Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Company.
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Select Papyri in Five Volumes: Non-literary papyri. Public documents. (1956).
Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Sherk, Robert K. (1969). Roman documents from the Greek East. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Shoell, Rudolf. (1866). Legis Duodecim Tabularum Reliquiae. Edidit, constituit prolegomena addidit Rudolphus Schoell. Lipsiae: Teubner.
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Theodosianum pertinentes.(1905). Berolini: Apvd Weismannos.
Westbrook, Reymond. (2015). Ex Oriente Lex: Near Eastern Influences on Ancient
Greek and Roman Law. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Published
2019-10-19
How to Cite
ToševaD. (2019). THE CONCEPT OF ADULTERY IN ROMAN LAW. Philological Studies, 17(2), 44-62. Retrieved from https://journals.ukim.mk/index.php/philologicalstudies/article/view/315
Section
History and Philology
Philological studies © 2019. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License
