# The Institutes of Justinian 1.81-95

Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian, Lines 1.81-1.95. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/roman-law-and-society/the-institutes-of-justinian/1.81

IX. The Power of Parents.
Our children, begotten in lawful marriage, are in our power.
1. Marriage, or matrimony, is a binding together of a man and woman to live in an indivisible union.
2. The power which we have over our children is peculiar to the citizens of Rome; for no other people have a power over their children, such as we have over ours.
3. The child born to you and your wife is in your power. And so is the child born to your son of his wife, that is, your grandson or granddaughter; so are your great-grandchildren, and all your other descendants. But a child born of your daughter is not in your power, but in the power of its own father.
X. Marriage.
Roman citizens are bound together in lawful matrimony when they are united according to law, the males having attained the age of puberty, and the females a marriageable age, whether they are fathers or sons of a family; but, of the latter, they must first obtain the consent of their parents, in whose power they are. For both natural reason and the law require this consent; so much so, indeed, that it ought to precede the marriage. Hence the question has arisen, whether the daughter of a madman could be married, or his son marry? And as opinions were divided as to the son, we decided that as the daughter of a madman might, so may the son of a madman marry without the intervention of the father, according to the mode established by our constitutio.
1. We may not marry every woman without distinction; for with some, marriage is forbidden. Marriage cannot be contracted between persons standing to each other in the relation of ascendant and descendant, as between a father and daughter, a grandfather and his granddaughter, a mother and her son, a grandmother and her grandson; and so on, ad infinitum. And, if such persons unite together, they only contract a criminal and incestuous marriage; so much so, that ascendants and descendants, who are only so by adoption, cannot intermarry; and even after the adoption is dissolved, the prohibition remains. You cannot, therefore, marry a woman who has been either your daughter or granddaughter by adoption, although you may have emancipated her.

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Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
License: Used with permission (https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/about.html). Source: http://thelatinlibrary.com/law/institutes.html.