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Marriage ({{lang|la|conubium}}) was one of the fundamental institutions of Roman society, as it joined not only two individuals but two families. The Romans considered marriage a partnership, whose primary purpose was to have legitimate descendants to whom property, status, and family qualities could be handed down through the generations.<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=81}}</ref>
The institution of marriage in ancient Rome was a strictly [[monogamy|marital monogamy]]: under Roman law, a [[Roman citizen]], whether male or female, could have only one spouse in marriage at a time in marriage 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]] that co-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>
Marriage had [[Roman mythology|mythical precedents]], starting with the [[The Rape of the Sabine Women|abduction of the Sabine Women]], which may reflect the archaic custom of [[bride abduction]]. [[Romulus]] and his band of male immigrants approached the Sabines for ''conubium'', the legal right to intermarriage, from the [[Sabines]]. According to [[Livy]], [[Romulus]] and his men abducted the Sabine maidens, but promised them an honorable marriage, in which they would enjoy the benefits of property, citizenship, and [[children of Ancient Rome|children]].<ref>Treggiari, Susan (1991). ''Roman Marriage''. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-814890-9}} esp. p. 8f</ref>
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