Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

unclear, and their role in inheritance remains almost entirely mysterious. All we really know about this class is that it was specified in the rule. The most striking feature of this list from a modern point of view is the absence of spouses: under this system, husbands and wives do not inherit from each other without a will. In that context, however, it is worth reiterating that these are only the rules for what happened without a will. Nothing prevents or even discourages a husband or wife from choosing to leave everything to the other. Although the rules of intestate succession were clearly treated in statute law, this was one of the areas in which the Edict effectively changed the rules. The precise dates are unclear, but by the first century bc the classes just listed had been replaced by a somewhat similar but longer list: (1) Liberi : same as sui heredes , already described, but emancipated children are included. (2) Legitimi : a mixed group including a father who had freed his children and the “nearest agnate” as defined earlier. (3) Cognati : These are any blood relatives, whether or not they are agnates. Here one does work outward through up to seven degrees of relationship until one or more heirs can be found. (4) Spouses: Only if there are no (willing) cognati do spouses inherit from a spouse who does not leave a will. (Interestingly, gifts from live spouses were illegal alto gether; see Chapter 16.) The general tendency of these changes was to give greater force to the ties of the biological family (as opposed to structures brought about by legal processes) and, to a lesser extent, to give the nuclear family some respect, though still less than that of the “agnatic” view of the family.

160