Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Women and Property

late Republic it seems to have become (if it wasn’t already) extremely rare. The one noteworthy constraint that marriage placed on a woman’s property applied to her husband’s as well. Gifts between spouses were not legally valid. Within the marriage this rule was probably not particularly important. If, say, a hus band provided his wife with a piece of jewelry or even a house of her own, it would not matter much whether ownership actu ally changed hands. But if a third party then became involved, the technicalities would become important. The wife could not pawn the jewelry or rent out the house, since she was not the owner, and no one would want to do business if she could not give assurances. (Again, this works both ways. The husband couldn’t pawn the watch his wife gave him.) Moreover, if the marriage broke up, there would have to be an accounting. The normal procedure seems to have been to allow each spouse to keep any specific gifts in the settlement, so long as they made up their value out of their own pocket. Some persons appar ently tried to evade the rule, by, say, having one spouse pay a debt for another or give a gift to an in-law, but the law rejected these attempts when they were detected.

Guardianship of Women

More significant to a woman’s property rights than marriage was the presence of a so-called guardian ( tutor ). The word is the same one used to describe the administrator who took care

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