A few months ago I bought An Introduction to Roman Law, by Barry Nicholas (1962) with the expectation that its dry subject matter would help me get to sleep in the evening. Oh my foolish heart! I have seen the clock tick past midnight many times while holding this book upon my lap. I had no idea that I would find in it the same enticing stories of human trials and triumphs that excite me in many other books on history. But you know all about that don't you Cicero.
There is also another thing which makes it all the easier to learn and master the law: though most people find this hard to believe. For the fact is that legal study is so utterly fascinating and absorbing!... ...Once he has embarked upon that line, the whole range of law and our priestly chronicles and the Twelve Tables will give him a remarkable picture of what ancient times were like. For one thing, these records provide invaluable evidence about primitive linguistic usage; and, besides, some of the types of legal action they preserve are extremely informative about our ancestors' customs and ways of life. (On the Orator: Cicero)
I am always fascinated to read about the ancient people's attitudes to their own ancient past. I live in such a peculiar time (I suppose that everyone considers their own era to be peculiar...Thucidides certainly did, and I am grateful...), wait...where was I...oh yes. I am interested in both ancient history, as well as far reaching futuristic science fiction, I feel that I am living in an era subject to an equal influence between these two poles of influence. I can feel the stratified layers of history beneath my feet, and also the atmospheric pressures of speculative thinking drawing me forward.
But I wanted to talk about Roman Law....
Divorce. Since Roman marriage depended for its existence merely on the parties' living together wit the intention of being married, it could equally be brought to an end by the free will of either or both. And just as no formality was needed for the beginning of a marriage, so also none was needed for its termination...Until the later years of the Republic this total freedom of divorce was kept in check by public opinion and by the Roman habit of consulting a family council before making any important decision. ... By the last century BC, however, divorce had become a matter of course, at least among the upper classes, for whose habits alone we have any evidence. The respectable Cicero put away his wife after thirty years of marriage in favour of a young and wealthy bride, and Cato of Utica had no compunction in remarrying his divorced wife when she was left a wealthy widow by her intervening husband. ... Seneca remarks that women reckon the years not by the names of the consuls, but by those of their husbands. (An introduction to Roman Law)
It is easy to think of women's rights as being a 20th Century concept, but it seems that throughout the development of the Roman Empire, greater and greater protections were granted to women in the case of divorce, securing their social and financial security against divorce. Laws were put in place to prevent the mismanagement of a wife's dowry, and to insist on the full return of all lands owned by the wife prior to the marriage. Since children were by law, the property of the husband, upon divorce, a percentage of the dowry could be kept by the husband for the maintenance of those children, but later changes to the law under Justinian, abolished this right.
I'm not particularly interested in divorce law, other than that is bears relevance to my own life. My parents divorced in 1992 when I was twelve years old, and my mother was shunned by the Catholic Church to which she had belonged for most of her life. As a child I was subject to visitation laws, as well as the problems of a restraining order put out against my father, preventing him from stepping foot on the same street as my mother's house. Along with my two sisters, I had to walk with my bags to the end of the street to be picked up by my father for weekend visits. My father had been violent towards my mother, so I understand her fears, and the reason for the restraining order, but I also remember the shame and confusion I felt each time I walked with my bags in hand to meet my father, waiting in the car.
Of course, my mother possessed no dowry, but there were child support payments, and the division of mutually held property, and for five years my parents struggled through family court, with many fights and accusations.
I have been lucky, or perhaps I just learned the lessons from my parents divorce, that since separating from my own first wife, we have maintained a 50/50 split of custody of our son, and have shared the expenses of his upbringing. My marriage was like the Roman custom, in that it was a marriage not sanctioned by any government documentation, but rather a mutual agreement. We were in fact re-married each year on the 31st of October in a private Handfasting ceremony, which for us meant a promise to remain together for a year and a day. We continued in this way for seven years before our promises came to an end. Our initial Handfasting Ceremony was presided over by a pagan priestess, and took place on a Sunday in the middle of a public marketplace in a small country town. Our friends and family gathered in a circle around us to witness the ceremony, which took less than five minutes. Afterwards we shared a potluck feast with everyone present, we drank mead, we danced to a funk band that showed up uninvited, we were entertained by a belly dancer friend, and the children were thrilled by the performance of The Amazing Drumming Monkeys, a puppetry and music duo who played African drums and sang songs about eating fruit and doing monkey yoga.
I don't know why I'm telling you all of this, Cicero, but it is easy to talk freely with you, so I will not judge myself harshly for this digression. It is actually pleasant, seven years having passed since my divorce, to reminisce about our wedding day.
No one knows why you divorced your wife Terentia. People speculate that it was over a breach of trust concerning money, that your wife may have stolen from you, but really, the truth is not visible in either your letters, or in the accounts given by later historians. Your divorce from your second wife Publilia is better understood; she did not seem to approve of the doting manner of your love for your daughter, Tullia. Whatever the truth, your life, and the whole Roman Republic was a mess at the time, and bad decisions were being made by everyone. I do not judge you. Even if you only married Publilia for her money, I don't really care. You paid back the dowry when you divorced, in accordance with the law, so all's fair in love and war, I guess.
I don't know where I'm going with all this. It's just a rambling letter. Every day I read, and every day I think of things I would like to write to you about.
With gratitude and Respect
Morgan.
*
PS. I'm not your only fan...
The Oration against Catiline - read by an Australian.
https://youtu.be/NZg1PzU9fqw?list=TLPQMDkwNTIwMjDXe7-Js65O7A
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