Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

the adoption tied the children only to the father, not to his wife (even if she were the biological mother). Conversely, a child, like a slave, could be “emancipated.” Such a child was thus freed from patria potestas . Originally, she was removed from her birth family as if she had never been part of it. Over time, however, emancipated children were allowed to retain certain rights, such as inheritance (Chapter 15). More precisely, they were allowed to claim a share of intes tate inheritance, so long as they added their own estate to be distributed to their siblings. This was to make up for the “head start” they had at building up personal wealth. Roman fic tion speaks often of “repudiation” of disobedient children, but this is not an actual term of law. Real emancipation need not result in disinheritance, and in fact seems usually to have been done as a favor to the child. It freed him from the oppression of patria potestas without automatically harming his position in any way.

Christianity

The “Christianization” of the Roman Empire could have been expected to have had any number of effects on the broader law and society, and in fact many modern observers have claimed to have detected these. Some of the purported Christian influences are not ultimately convincing. Some reductions in the severity of punishments for slaves, for instance, are probably in large part the result of power struggles over who (private owner or

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