1.1.87 to 1.1.92

(57a) Marriage, however, cannot take place with persons of servile condition. (58) Nor are we permitted to marry any free woman, as we should refrain from contracting matrimony with certain ones of this class. [1] The right of asylum, derived by Rome from Greece, did not attach to all temples, or Imperial statues, but only to such as long continued custom had invested with that privilege, of which debtors, slaves, and violators of the law constantly availed themselves. The clergy, after the introduction of Christianity, being well aware of the financial and political advantages which would accrue to them by the perpetuation of this practice, encouraged and confirmed it, until the abuse of the right of sanctuary, through the immunity enjoyed by notorious criminals, became one of the worst scandals of mediæval times. —ED. (59) For marriage cannot be contracted between persons who sustain to one another the relation of ascendants and descendants, nor can legal matrimony exist between them; for instance, between father and daughter, mother and son, or grandfather and granddaughter; and if such persons form unions they are said to have contracted nefarious and incestuous marriages. To such an extent does this rule apply that, although the relationship of parents and children may have been established by adoption, they cannot contract matrimony with one another, and even if the adoption has been dissolved, the same rule of law will continue to apply; so that I could not take as a wife a woman who sustains to me the relationship of daughter or granddaughter by adoption, even if I have emancipated her. (60) This rule also applies to persons related in the collateral degree, but not to the same extent.