Slavery, Family, and Status

Abstract

© Cambridge University Press 2015. Introduction This chapter considers the key legal institutions that governed the lives of Roman citizens and others who were affected by Roman law. The background is the central question of how a person became a legitimate Roman citizen; interlinked with this is the unique Roman institution of paternal power. These key themes are reflected throughout the law on adoption, marriage and divorce, and on tutors and guardians. The chapter considers these questions not just as a matter of legal doctrine but also, so far as possible, in their social context. It also deals with the place occupied by slaves and freedmen alongside the elaborate legal institutions applicable to freeborn Roman citizens. Subordination was a permanent feature of Roman social and legal life. Only a few, exclusively male, Roman citizens possessed full legal rights in both private and public life. The majority of free male citizens and nearly all free female citizens were subordinate within their families and as such were denied full status in private law. Male citizens over the age of puberty, later settled at 14 years of age, were in principle able to participate as citizens in public life, but in private law they remained subordinated to their fathers and other male ascendants. A very large proportion of the population was not free at all: as slaves they lacked all personal rights in either private or public law.