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sábado, 3 de junio de 2023

DIVORCES IN ANCIENT ROME




ANA MARIA SEGHESSO







THE OBSTACLES TO POPULATION INCREASE 



A FUNCTIONAL REASONING



In the time of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, the legislation regarding marriage was modified. Rome was going through a demographic decline, a consequence of several factors combined.

Divorce, from the point of view of the historical situation, had to guarantee an increase in the birth rate, as a direct consequence of a natural biological programming.


According to some historians, medium- and high-level couples avoided generating more than two children, to prevent excessive distribution of family assets, which reduced wealth and, as a consequence, social prestige.

In addition, fertility insufficiency is mentioned due to the presence of lead in the pipes of the aqueducts that transported drinking water.


Many patrician women decided not to marry, opting for the authority of a father or a brother, who were more flexible and closer to their interests than the duties of the conjugal relationship.


The fundamental reason, however, is due to the constant wars of Rome on the various battle fronts, which brought large gains in loot, taxes, trade and territories, but with a high mortality.


To promote marriage, Augustus promulgated laws (1) that determined that all men between the ages of twenty-five and sixty and all women between twenty and fifty belonging to the Senate and the equestrian order - linked to the class leader of the Roman state – they had to marry obligatorily; if they do not do so, they would be penalized with the prohibition of receiving legacies or inheritances.


Subsequently, the emperor arranged for the divorced woman to recover her dowry.

The redemption of the dowry by the women increased the chances of a new marriage.





The ius trium liberorum was also instituted, which granted parents with three or more legitimate children certain privileges, such as lowering the minimum age for access to the magistracy for men and "the proper management of their inheritances and assets to the women, without the interference of the husband or father."


The new laws allowed all Romans from commoner families to marry freedwomen.

De facto marriages of soldiers were legalized, granting their children civil rights.

The prohibition of breaking formal marriage promises, regulated in the aforementioned laws, put a brake on those who wanted to evade marriage.


Divorce procedures were simplified: the will of "one of the spouses to divorce" was enough.

The execution was to take place in the presence of seven witnesses; a freedman notified the interested party in writing the formula:


Tua res tibi agito

take your things

Tuas res tibi habeto

keep your things


Divorces multiplied in Rome with the laws that Augustus had sanctioned, with the aim of provoking new occasions for marriage and more prolific unions.

In the event of divorce, Roman matrons recovered her entire dowry, which the husband could neither administer nor mortgage.


Divorces and marriages were arranged to such an extent and with such ease, favored by the consent of the two spouses or by the sole will of one party, that family relations were drastically transformed.









Without major moral hesitations, at the age of fifty-seven, Cicero, to heal his patrimony with the dowry of a young and rich heiress named Publilia, divorced his wife Terentia from him, after thirty years of life. in common.


However, Terentia did not lose heart and endured the conflict without great tension, since she still married twice, first with Sallustio, the famous historian, then with Mesala Corvino, general, writer and politician, dying with more than a hundred years .


In a short time the women took the initiative of the divorce.


Juvenal disapproves of the new feminine liberties in his "Satires", mentioning an aristocratic woman, who had been married eight times in "five autumns".


                                      




Marcial criticizes a divorcee, named Telesilla, who, after Domitian had restored the "Iulie" laws, had married for the tenth time.


Seneca writes, disconsolate


“No woman is ashamed of divorcing her, because they have gotten used to counting her years, not with the name of the consul, as was customary, but with that of her husbands.

They divorce to get married, they get married to get divorced.”


And the disgusted Martial sentenced


“Quae nubit totiens, non nubit: adultera lege est.”


"Whoever marries so many times, it is as if he had never married, he is an adulterer."


However, the laws produced the results intended by the emperor.


Augusto with his reforms had sensed that he united greed more than lust.











[1] Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BC) and Lex Papia Poppaea (9 BC)

[2] Juvenal, a Latin poet in his Satires, criticizes Roman customs.

[3] Marcial, Latin poet, from Bílbile, Calatayud, Hispania Terraconensede

[4] Seneca, famous philosopher, politician and moralist writer.






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