The Marriage Revolution in Late Antiquity: The Theodosian Code and Later Roman Marriage Law
Abstract
Although much scholarly work has already been done on Roman marriage law, most of it deals with the classical era, and little has been done to explore the remarkably radical changes to marriage law in Roman law in late antiquity, that is, during the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. The Theodosian Code provides a unique and valuable source of information, despite the limitations evident in any legal text, on a wide range of legal issues pertaining to marriage: the necessity of marriage, the choice of marriage partner and consent to marriage, marriage payments, adultery and divorce, remarriage and inheritance, and even the marriages of slaves, soldiers, and clerics, and same-sex marriage. The extent of the changes revealed even demands new questions about the influence of Christian ideology on later Roman law.
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References
See Percy Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1930); and Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). See also Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family ( Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), chs. 2-3.
For monographs, see Michel Humbert, Le remariage à Rome ( Milan: Dott. A. Guiffré, 1972); Judith Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family ( Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984); Jane Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society ( London: Croom Helm, 1986); Dixon, The Roman Family; and Richard Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); there are, in addition, innumerable journal articles and collected essays on these topics.
Peter Brown, The Body and Society : Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity ( New York : Columbia University Press, 1988).
Korbinian Ritzer, Le mariage dans les Églises chrétiennes du Ier au XIe siècle ( Paris: Cerf, 1962); and Jean Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident: Les moeurs et le droit ( Paris, Cerf, 1987).
Aline Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. Felicia Pheasant ( Oxford: Blackwell, 1988 ); Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Life-Styles ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Philip Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods ( Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994); Judith Evans Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine's Marriage Legislation ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1995); Antti Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1996); Geoffrey Nathan, The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition ( New York: Routledge, 2000); and Mathew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001 ).
Tony Honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379-455 A.D.: The Theodosian Dynasty and Its Quaestors ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Jill Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and John Matthews, Laying down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code ( New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 2000).
See Tony Honoré, “ The Making of the Theodosian Code,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 10 (1986): 133-222 . The Theodosian Code is surely lacking those laws that had already disappeared before its existence, and even those laws preserved in it were abbreviated and so might be missing some elements, but it is nonetheless a remarkable compilation. Matthews's book (Laying down the Law) in particular includes a detailed analysis of laws as they are found in the C. Th. and the same laws found in greater detail in other compilations, such as the Sirmondian Constitutions, to show how little they were usually changed.
See many of the chapters in The Roman Family in the Empire: Rome, Italy, and Beyond, ed. Michele George ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), for examples of the variations apparent from these local studies, although all deal with the early Empire.
For summaries of the Augustan legislation on marriage, see Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 249-50; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 60-80 . For more detailed accounts of the legislation and discussions of the purpose of the laws, see Leo Raditsa, “ Augustus' Legislation concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, no. 13 ( 1980): 278-339 ; P. Cxillag, The Augustan Laws on Family Relations ( Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976); and Beth Severy, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire ( New York: Routledge, 2003), the last of which compares Augustus' policies with his own family life. Note that the Augustan laws also leveled penalties against the childless.
T. Mommsen and P. Meyer, eds., Codex Theodosianus ( Berlin: Weidmann, 1905). All translations are those of Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions ( Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952).
Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, passim.
A number of scholars have tried to calculate the population decline, and all have concluded a serious drop in the Roman Empire in late antiquity. See Arthur Boak, Manpower Shortage and the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West ( Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955); Pierre Salmon, Population et dépopulation dans l'Empire romain ( Brussels: Latomus, 1974); and Josiah Cox Russell, The Control of Late Ancient and Medieval Population ( Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1985). All of these estimates, of course, must remain tentative given the limitations of the sources.
See Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “ Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage-Laws,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 207 (1981): 58-80 .
See also Michele Salzman, “ The Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the Theodosian Code,” Historia 42 (1993): 362-78 .
First noted by Jack Goody, “Strategies of Heirship,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (1973): 3-20 .
See Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 161-80, for a discussion of the fideicommissum and other aspects of what he calls “strategies of succession.”
See Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), who considered this change a conscious strategy by church officials, which assumes that legislators were working in the interests of church officials. Goody has been criticized by K. Verdery, “ A Comment on Goody's Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe,” Journal of Family History 13 (1988 ): 265-70 ; but defended by A. Guerreau-Jalabert, “ La parenté dans l'Europe médiévale et moderne: À propos d'une synthèse récente,” L'homme 110 (1989): 69-93 ; and by Jack Goody himself in The Oriental, the Ancient, and the Primitive: Systems of Marriage and the Family in the Pre-Industrial Societies of Eurasia ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 3 .
See Katharina Wilson and Elizabeth Makowski, Wykked Wives and the Woes of Marriage: Misogamous Literature from Juvenal to Chaucer ( Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), who provided numerous examples of the theme in Latin literature. See also Suzanne Dixon, “The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family,” in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, ed. Beryl Rawson ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 99-113; Susan Treggiari, “Putting the Family Across: Cicero on Natural Affection,” in George, The Roman Family in the Empire, 9-35; and Michele George, “Family Imagery and Family Values in Roman Italy,” in George, The Roman Family in the Empire, 37-66, all of whom argued for a sentimental ideal of Roman family life.
See Brown, Body and Society, passim; and Thomas Camelot, “ Les traités `De virginitate' au IVe siècle,” Études carmélitaines 18 (1952): 273-92 .
See JoAnn McNamara, “ Chaste Marriage and Clerical Celibacy,” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. Vern Bullough and James Brundage ( Buffalo, N. Y.: Prometheus, 1982), on Latin-speaking regions of the Roman Empire; and see Elizabeth A. R. Clark, “ John Chrysostom and the Subintroductae,” Church History 46 (1977): 171-85, on Greek-speaking regions.
See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 37-39.
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 8, 175, 233 .
See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 43-54 ; and Beryl Rawson, “ Roman Concubinage and Other de Facto Marriages,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 104 (1974): 279-305 . As Treggiari pointed out, there was also a form of Roman concubinage (called concubinatus) that was intended to permit long-term cohabitation without any of the legal consequences of marriage. On this last point, see also Thomas A. J. McGinn, “ Concubinage and the Lex Iulia on Adultery,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 121 (1991): 335-75 .
See M. Durry, “ Le mariage des filles impubères à Rome,” Revue des études latines 47 (1955): 17-25 ; opposed by J. Reinach, “ Puberté féminine et mariage romain,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger 10 (1956): 268-73 ; supported by Keith Hopkins, “ The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage,” Population Studies 18 (1965): 309-27 ; and opposed again by Brent Shaw, “The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage: Some Reconsiderations,” Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 30-46 . On this question, see also Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 25-41 ; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 39-43, 398-403 .
See J. Phillips, “ Roman Mothers and the Lives of Their Adult Daughters,” Helios 6 (1978): 69-80 ; and Hallett, Fathers and Daughters . Both Phillips and Hallett used earlier Roman evidence.
Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 65.
Susan Treggiari, “ Consent to Roman Marriage: Some Aspects of Law and Reality,” Classical Views 26 (1982): 34-44 . On the power of the paterfamilias more generally, see Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 102-32 . See also Richard Saller, “ The Social Dynamics of Consent to Marriage and Sexual Relations: The Evidence of Roman Comedy,” in Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies, ed. Angeliki Laiou ( Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1993), 83-104, in which he suggested that comedic plays present more varied views of marital consent than are presented in the law. 28. Digest 35.1.15, discussed by Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident, 29-31.
Digest 23.2.1, discussed by Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident, 24-26.
See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 170-80. See also ibid., 83-124, for an extended discussion of factors involved in the choice of marriage partner. See also Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, 70-76, on the decline of the power of the paterfamilias in the later Roman family.
By contrast, the Augustan legislation had only prohibited marriage between senators or their descendants and freedpersons or actors or children of actors (Digest 23.3.44; see Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 61).
See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 2-11, for classical definitions.
S. Oost, Galla Placidia Augusta: A Biographical Essay ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 70-81. Nathan (The Family in Late Antiquity, 77-83) examined Honorius' marriage to his first wife, Maria, in detail.
Brent Shaw and Richard Saller, “ Close-Kin Marriage in Roman Society ?” Man 19 ( 1984): 432-44 . See also M. Corbier, “ Les comportements familiaux de l'aristocratie romaine (IIe siècle av. J.-C.-IIIe siècle ap. J.-C.),” Annales: Économies, sociétés, civilisations 42 (1987): 1267-86 . See also the discussion of endogamy in Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 107-19 . On the difficulties of using epigraphical evidence for family studies, see Evelyne Patlagean, “ Familles chrétiennes d'Asie Mineure et histoire démographique du IVe siècle,” in Transformations et conflits au IVe siècle ap. J.-C., Colloque organisé par la Fédération Internationale des Études Classiques ( Bonn: Rudolf Habelt, 1978), 169-86 .
See Keith Hopkins, “ Brother-Sister Marriage in Roman Egypt,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (1980): 303-54 ; and Seymour Parker, “ Full Brother-Sister Marriage in Roman Egypt: Another Look,” Cultural Anthropology 11 (1996): 362-76 .
A. Lee, “ Close-Kin Marriage in Late Antique Mesopotamia,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 29 ( 1988): 403-14 .
See Susan Treggiari, “ Consent to Roman Marriage: Some Aspects of Law and Reality,” Classical Views 26 (1982): 34-44, who suggested that this was a law of the emperor Julian that is no longer extant. See also Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, 29-37, for the father's continued role in arranging his children's marriages; and Judith Evans Grubbs, “ Parent-Child Conflict in the Roman Family: The Evidence of the Code of Justinian,” in George, The Roman Family in the Empire, 99-112, who looked at cases involving consent to marriage and the authority of the paterfamilias from the third century C.E.
See Judith Evans Grubbs, “ Abduction Marriage in Antiquity,” Journal of Roman Studies 79 (1989): 59-83 ; see also Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 183-202 .
Suggested from demographic evidence by Richard Saller, “ Men's Age at Marriage and Its Consequences in the Roman Family,” Classical Philology 82 (1987): 21-34 ; and supported from archeological evidence by B. Frier, “ Roman Life Expectancy: The Pannonian Evidence,” Phoenix 37 (1983): 328-44 . See also Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 12-25, for a discussion of the complications for demographic calculations in Roman antiquity.
See P. Guichard, “ De l'antiquité au moyen âge: Famille large et famille étroite,” Cahiers d'histoire 24 (1979): 45-60 ; and Brent Shaw, “ Latin Funerary Epigraphy and Family Life in the Later Roman Empire,” Historia 33 (1984): 457-97 .
David Herlihy, Medieval Households ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 18-19.
On the classical dowry, see Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 180; Fritz Schultz, Classical Roman Law ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), 124 ; Suzanne Dixon, “ The Marriage Alliance in the Roman Elite,” Journal of Family History 10 (1985): 353-78, at 369-70 ; Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 323-64 ; and Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death, 204-24 .
See Sarah Pomeroy, “ The Relationship of the Married Woman to Her Blood Relatives in Rome,” Ancient Society 7 (1976): 215-27 ; see also Marilyn Arthur, “ `Liberated' Women: The Classical Era,” in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz ( Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1979), 60-89 .
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 153 ; Raditsa, “ Augustus' Legislation concerning Marriage,” 320 ; and Dixon, “ The Marriage Alliance in the Roman Elite,” 359 . For complications of this system, see Richard Saller, “ Roman Dowry and the Devolution of Property in the Principate,” Classical Quarterly, no. 34 (1984 ): 195-205 ; and Jane F. Gardner, “ The Recovery of Dowry in Roman Law,” Classical Quarterly, no. 35 (1985 ): 449-53 . On the frequency of divorce in the early Empire, see below. Actual amounts required to be left were not specified, although women were not permitted to inherit more than 100 secterces according to the lex Voconia of the late Republic, reaffirmed as the ratio Voconiana of the early Empire. Still, this law could be circumvented by the fideicommissum, described above. For more on women and inheritance, see Jean Gaudemet, “ Le statut de la femme dans l'Empire romain,” Receuils de la Société Jean Bodin pour l'histoire comparative des institutions 2 ( 1959): 191-222, at 215-16 ; Pomeroy, The Relationship of the Married Woman,” 224 ; Suzanne Dixon, “ Polybius on Roman Women and Property,” American Journal of Philology 106 (1985): 147-70 ; J.A. Crook, “ Women in Roman Succession,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. Beryl Rawson ( Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 58-82 ; and J.A. Crook, “ Feminine Inadequacy and the Senatusconsultum Velleianum,” in Rawson, The Family in Ancient Rome, 83-92 .
See John L. Comaroff, The Meaning of Marriage Payments ( London: Academic, 1980), 4.
See Diane Owen Hughes, “From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe,” Journal of Family History 3 (1978): 261-96 .
See Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 114-16; and Schultz, Classical Roman Law, 121.
Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 175-77, downplayed its significance, for example; whereas Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, 52-62, examined the shift in detail but was unable to determine its origins.
Herlihy, Medieval Households, 16-22.
See Donald Engels, “ The Problem of Female Infanticide in the Greco-Roman World,” Classical Philology 75 (1980): 112-20 ; challenged by William V. Harris, “ The Theoretical Possibility of Extensive Infanticide in the Graeco-Roman World,” Classical Quarterly, no. 32 (1982): 114-16 ; but supported by Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 409 .
See James Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1987 ), 110-12.
See also Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, on women's greater independence in late antiquity and its relationship to marital renunciation (156-64), on widowhood more generally (167-72), and on remarriage and its financial complications (172-77).
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 94; and Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident, 59.
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 87.
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 208; Raditsa, “Augustus' Legislation concerning Marriage,” 307; Gaudemet, “ Le statut de la femme,” 208; Dixon, “The Marriage Alliance,” 372; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 443-44.
Gaudemet, “ Le statut de la femme,” 209; Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident, 40; Evans Grubbs, “ Parent-Child Conflict,” 112-22; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 459. Treggiari believed that women in marriages in which they remained under the authority of their paterfamilias (in marriages called sine manu) were able to initiate divorces once their paterfamilias was dead already in the late Republic, but only in the second century C.E. were women under the authority of their husbands (in marriages called cum manum) able to initiate divorce.
On the frequency of divorce, see Susan Treggiari, “ Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It ?” in Rawson, Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, 31-46 ; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 473-82 . On marriage among the lower classes, see I. Kajanto, “ On Divorce among the Common People of Rome,” Revue des études latines 47 (1970): 99-113 .
See Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, 76, 86.
G. Robina Quale, A History of Marriage Systems ( Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1988 ), 201-2 . For scholars who considered Christian influences on this law, see V. Basanoff, “ Les sources chrétiennes de la Loi de Constantin sur le repudium (Cod. Theod. III, 16, 1 a. 331) et le champ d'application de cette loi,” Studi in onore di Salvatore Riccobono nel XL anno sel suo insegnamento 3 (1936): 177-99 ; and Gaudemet, Le mariage en occident, 70-83 . For scholars who dismissed Christian influences on this law, see Roger Bagnall, “ Church, State and Divorce in Late Roman Egypt,” in Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. K-L. Selig and R. Somerville ( New York : Italica, 1987), 45-54 ; and Michel Verdon, “ Virgins and Widows: European Kinship and Early Christianity,” Man 23 (1988): 488-505, at 491 . See also the detailed discussion of this law in Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 228-34 .
In contrast, remarriage seems to have been prohibited only to freedwomen who divorced their patrons (that is, their former masters) without their husband's consent; see Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 450.
Bagnall, “Church, State and Divorce,” 55. It should be noted that Bagnall did not believe Julian's law to have ever been repealed, because Jovian's law was not preserved in the C. Th. But several laws had disappeared before the compilation was made, and Bagnall believed that Julian's law existed despite its not being included in the C. Th. See Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, 177-89; see also Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, on Julian's repeal of the law (232-34), on the later laws on divorce (234-37), and for more later Roman examples of actual divorces (238-42).
Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 262-319, has the most detailed discussion of adultery; see also Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, 193-205.
See also Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 205-16, for an extended discussion of these two laws.
See J. Rougé, “ Fausta, femme de Constantin: Criminelle ou victime ?” Cahiers d'histoire 25 (1980): 3-18 .
Humbert, Le remariage à Rome, 59ff.; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 233-36.
See Keith Bradley, “ Remarriage and the Structure of the Upper-Class Roman Family,” in Rawson, Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, 79-98.
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 120; Schultz, Classical Roman Law, 119-20; Wallace-Hadrill, “Family and Inheritance,” 65; and Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 365-79.
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage, 120; and Dixon, “ The Marriage Alliance,” 360-65. Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 379-96, also describes occasions when inheritances could pass between husbands and wives.
See also Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, on the separation of marital property in classical law (133-43) and in later Roman law (143-54).
See I. Biezunska-Malowist and M. Malowist, “La procréation des esclaves comme source de l'esclavage (quelques observations sur l'esclavage dans l'antiquité, du moyen-age et au cours des temps modernes),” in Mélanges offerts à Kazimierz Michalowski ( Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Nankowe, 1966), 275-80. The ambiguity of the evidence is described in Keith Bradley, Masters and Slaves in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control ( Brussels: Latomus, 1984), 53, 56, 75, 77.
See André Chastagnol, “Les femmes dans l'ordre sénatorial: Titulature et rang social à Rome,” Revue historique 531 (1979): 3-98 .
See Marc Bloch, “How and Why Slavery Came to an End,” in Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages, ed. W. Beer ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
On Constantine's problems with the Roman aristocracy, see M.T.W. Arnheim, The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman Empire ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 5. Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 26; and Nathan, The Family in Late Antiquity, 71, believed that Constantine's law may have been intended only for the imperial slaves of Sardinia and for a particular circumstance, but as Evans Grubbs admitted (Law and Family, 46), it is not easy to know whether a law was universally intended, because only one copy of the law might have been included in the C. Th. even though numerous copies of it had been sent to different parts of the empire.
See Judith Evans Grubbs, “` Marriage More Shameful than Adultery': Slave-Mistress Relationships, `Mixed Marriages,” and Late Roman Law,” Phoenix 47 ( 1993): 125-54 ; see also Grubbs, Law and Family, 261-300 .
See Brian Campbell, “ The Marriage of Soldiers under the Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 68 (1978): 153-66, who dated the change to the reign of Septimius Severus and the turn of the third century. This dating is challenged by Peter Garnsey, “ Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers,” California Studies in Classical Antiquity 3 (1970): 45-53 . See now also Sara Elise Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 B.C.-A.D. 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army ( Leiden: Brill, 2001), who provided a detailed and sophisticated discussion of the scope of the ban on marriage for soldiers, and who also considered the ban to have ended with Septimius Severus.
See JoAnn McNamara, “ Chaste Marriage and Clerical Celibacy,” in Bullough and Brundage, Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church.
See John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe ( New York: Villard, 1994 ), 3-107 ; and Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 245-52 . This interpretation was opposed by Brent Shaw, “ A Groom of One's Own ?” New Republic, July 18, 1994, 33-41, who used some Roman evidence.
See Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, 101-2.
Ibid., 87-96.
Nathan, The Family in Late Antiquity, 185-89.
See Brown, Body and Society, both for the multiplicity of voices and for the general pattern of marital renunciation among Christian writers throughout late antiquity.
Evans Grubbs, Law and Family, 28-40, and see also 65-94 for her detailed discussion of the differences among Christians on marriage and 242-60 for the differences among Christians on divorce. She believed that only two of Constantine's laws on the family were definitely influenced by Christian piety: C. Th. 3.16.1 (restricting divorce) and 8.16.1 (ending the penalties against the unmarried). Nathan also included detailed sections that contrast Christian attitudes toward incest with those of late Roman legislators (88-91) as well as attitudes toward and laws on widowhood (116-28).
Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity, 257.
See Tony Honoré, “Some Quaestors of the Reign of Theodosius II,” in The Theodosian Code, ed. Jill Harries and Ian Wood ( Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 68-94, who attributed the composition of the laws to quaestors in the Roman government rather than to the emperors themselves.
John Chrysostom, De virginitate, 40.2-3, 54, in Jean Chrysostome: La virginité, ed. Herbert Musurillo ( Paris: Cerf, 1966).
Ibid., 3.10.
Ibid., 78.4. Eunuchs, he thus argued, did not merit the spiritual rewards of virginity because they had not chosen it (ibid., 8.5).
Ibid., 37.3.
Compare this conclusion to Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, 161-70, in which I argued more pointedly that Christian leaders in late antiquity borrowed from existing Roman notions of sexual vice in formulating Christian principles about it.
See Carl von Savigny, The History of the Roman Law during the Middle Ages, trans. E. Cathcart ( Westport, Conn.: Hyperion, 1979); see also Ian Wood, “The Code in Merovingian Gaul,” in Harries and Wood, The Theodosian Code, 161-77; and Dafydd Walters, “ From Benedict to Gratian: The Code in Medieval Ecclesiastical Writers,” in Harries and Wood, The Theodosian Code, 200-16.
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