Marriage in ancient Rome: Difference between revisions

'''Marriage in ancient Rome''' ({{lang|la|conubium}}) was a fundamental institution of society and was used by Romans primarily as a tool for [[marriage alliance|interfamilial alliances]]. The institution of Roman marriage was a practice of [[monogamy|marital monogamy]]: [[Roman citizen]]s could have only one spouse at a time in marriage but were allowed to divorce and remarry. This form of prescriptively monogamous marriage that co-existed with male [[Polygyny|resource polygyny]]{{Efn|Powerful men can have one wife and many other sexual partners}} in Greco-Roman civilization may have arisen from the relative [[egalitarianism]] of [[Greek democracy|democratic]] and [[Roman Republic|republican]] city-states. [[Early Christianity]] embraced this ideal of monogamous marriage by adding its own teaching of [[monogamy|sexual monogamy]], and perpetrated it worldwide and became as an essential element in many later [[Western culture]]s.

MarriageThe institution of marriage in ancient Rome was a strictly [[monogamy|monogamousmarital monogamy]] institution: under Roman law, a [[Roman citizen]], whether male or female, could have only one spouse in marriage at a time but were allowed to divorce and remarry.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=148}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=187}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=220}}</ref> The practice of [[Monogamy|marital monogamy]] inthat marriageco-existed with male [[Polygyny|resource polygyny]] distinguished the [[Marriage in Ancient Greece|Greeks]] and Romans from ancient civilizations in which elite males typically had [[Polygyny|multiple wives]] in the institution of marriage.<ref>Scheidel, Walter, "A peculiar institution? Greco–Roman monogamy in global context", 2006, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2145, USA (2006), In ''History of the Family'' 14 (2009), Elsevier, pp. 280</ref> [[Walter Scheidel]] believes that Greco-Roman monogamy in marriage may have arisen from the relative [[egalitarianism]] of the [[Greek democracy|democratic]] and [[Roman Republic|republican]] political systems of the city-states. The aspect of a marital monogamy was later embraced by [[early Christianity]], which in turn perpetuated it with its own teaching of [[Monogamy|sexual monogamy]] as an ideal in later [[Western culture]]s. In the early fifth century [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] referred to it as a "Roman custom".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cheidel |first=Walter |title=A peculiar institution? Greco–Roman monogamy in global context |publisher=Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2145, USA (2006) |year=2006 |location=sciencedirect.com |pages=280–291}}</ref>

[[Roman citizenship|Roman citizen]] women could have only one sexual partner at a time but allowed [[divorce]] and [[remarriage]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Women_and_the_Law_in_the_Roman_Empire/spCFAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gl=INonepage&q&f=false |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=148, 220, 220}}</ref> In the case of Roman citizen men, it is not clear whether the condition that a man is not able to have a concubine at the time that he has a wife pre-dates or post-dates the Constantinian law;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=303}}</ref> ie., whether concubinage existed concurrently with marriage for men in Ancient Rome has been debated in modern scholarship and the evidence is inconclusive: it was not until the sixth century CE, after centuries of Christian influence, that the [[Justinian I|emperor Justinian]] claimed that “ancient law” prohibited husbands from keeping wives and concubines at the same time.<ref>Scheidel, Walter, "A peculiar institution? Greco–Roman monogamy in global context", 2006, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2145, USA (2006), In ''History of the Family'' 14 (2009), Elsevier, pp. 283</ref> According to Walter Schedule, conditions in the Ancient Rome are best defined as prescriptively monogamous marriage that co-existed with male resource polygyny; powerful men had a principal wife and several secondary sexual partners.<ref>Scheidel, Walter, "A peculiar institution? Greco–Roman monogamy in global context", 2006, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2145, USA (2006), In ''History of the Family'' 14 (2009), Elsevier, pp. 280</ref> A married man's sexual activities with slaves, prostitutes, or other women of low status were not, in legal terms, adultery, and he could not be prosecuted under Augustus Laws.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=210}}</ref> Under the adultery law, married man would only be committing adultery if his lover were someone else's wife.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans Grubbs |first=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spCFAgAAQBAJ |title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: a sourcebook on marriage, divorce and widowhood |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=June 2002 |isbn=9781134743926 |pages=203}}</ref>