Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Age

In most societies a person does not have full (or perhaps any) legal rights until reaching some age of adulthood. In some cases there are different ages for different purposes, say, eighteen for voting and control of one’s own property in the United States and England, slightly younger to be able to drive, and slightly older in the United States to buy alcohol. Roman law observed a number of such distinctions (to be discussed shortly), but the most important marker of adulthood was not tied to a specific age. A Roman could not own any property or perform any binding transactions, regardless of age, as long as his or her father was still alive. Any property that might happen to come into the child’s hands became the property of the father. (This is one reason inheritance law was so important to the Romans.) More generally, the authority of a father over his children, of whatever age, was supposedly absolute. Our sources even insist on his right to execute them at will, though actual instances are so rare that some have questioned the rule itself. The theoreti cal power was restricted in the second century ad and abol ished by the emperor Constantine. Interestingly, this dramatic hierarchy did not affect the public sphere. A qualified citizen could be elected to public office whether or not his father was still alive. He would still not, however, have any property to his name. A note on terminology: There are several important and often similar-sounding Latin terms in this area of

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