Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea

Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea The relation of this statute to the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus is not perfectly clear. Augustus appears in his sixth consulate (B.C. 28) to have issued an edict (Tac. Ann. 3.28) on the subject of marriage, which he followed up (B.C. 18) by proposing a law to the senate regulating certain marriages, imposing disabilities on unmarried persons (caelibes), and establishing rewards for those who had married and reared children (D. C. 54.16). This he carried with difficulty through the senate, but, apparently owing to the organised resistance of the equites, it was tumultuously rejected at the Comitia (Suet. Aug. 34). Towards the end of his reign, however (A.D. 3), he succeeded in carrying it, with its rewards increased and its penalties mitigated: it is referred to in the Carmen Saeculare of Horace, which was written B.C. 17, and is mentioned under the name Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus in Dig. 38, 11; 23, 2. The opposition of the knights was overcome by a provision that it should not come into force for three, a period subsequently extended to six, years; and taking advantage of this, Augustus passed in A.D. 9 another statute (called Papia Poppaea from the consules suffecti for the year, M. Papius Mutilus and Q. Poppaeus Secundus: D. C. 56.1-10), containing further enactments on the same subject. Some writers are of opinion that there was but one lex (Papia Poppaea), in which the earlier unsuccessful law was incorporated, and it is true that the frequent mention of them together as one lex (Julia et Papia Poppaea) lends some colour to the supposition: but the view here taken seems more in accordance with the information given by historians, and to be confirmed by the provisions of the statutes being sometimes distinguished in close juxtaposition. Sometimes they are cited by reference to their various chapters: e. g. Lex Caducaria, Lex Decimaria, Lex Miscella, &c.

Many commentaries were written on these leges by the Roman jurists, of which considerable fragments are preserved in the Digest: Gaius wrote fifteen books, Ulpian twenty, and Paulus at least ten. The joint statute contained at least thirty-five chapters (Dig. 22, 2, 19), but as a rule it is impossible to say to which of the two leges included under the general title of Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea the several provisions as now known to us belong. Attempts have been made both by J. Gothofredus and Heineccius to restore them, on the assumption that their provisions are reducible to the two general heads of a Lex Maritalis and a Lex Caducaria (cf. Puchta, Institutionen, § 107).

Among the enactments of these statutes are the following:--

(i.) Prohibition of certain marriages under penalties: viz. of ingenui with infames (e. g. actresses and prostitutes); and of senators or their children with freedwomen, freedmen, and actors' daughters (Ulpian, Reg. 13.1, 16.2; Dig. 23, 2, 44, pr. and 1). Marriages between a senator or his issue and libertini were declared void by a senatusconsult passed under M. Aurelius (Dig. 23, 2, 16, pr.), and the rule was subsequently extended to actors and actresses (Dig. ib. 42, 1).

(ii.) Avoidance of conditions against marriage annexed to legacies and inheritances. [JULIA MISCELLA.]

(iii.) Provisions to encourage marriage. Caelibes were disabled by the Lex Julia from taking either as heirs or as legatees (Gaius, 2.111, 144, 286) under a will, unless the testator were related to them within the sixth degree (Ulpian, Reg. 16.1; Frag. Vat. 216, 219), or unless they married within 100 days (Ulpian, Reg. 17.1; 22.3). Spadones and vestal virgins were exempted from the operation of the statute, as were widows for twelve months, and divorced women for six: these periods were extended by the Lex Papia to two years and eighteen months respectively (Ulp. Reg. 14). Again, the penalty of the statute could be evaded by an engagement to marry, if carried out within two years (Sueton. Octav. 34; D. C. 54.16, 56.7; Dig. 23, 1, 17). Finally, males were released from its provisions in this respect on attaining sixty, women on attaining fifty years of age; but a Senatusconsultum Persicianum passed under Tiberius enacted that they should be regarded as caelibes in perpetuity if they postponed marrying till so late in life. A Senatusconsultum Claudianum so far modified the strictness of the new rule as to give a man who married after sixty the same advantage that he would have had if he had married under sixty, provided he married a woman who was under fifty; but it was enacted by a Senatusconsultum Calvisianum under Nero, that if a woman over fifty married a husband under sixty, even the latter should not escape the disabilities imposed by the statute (Ulpian, Reg. 16.4). Similarly, by the Lex Papia, orbi (persons who had been married, but had no children living) were disabled from taking more than a moiety of what was left them by way of either inheritance or legacy (Gaius, 2.111, 286; Ulpian, Reg. 16.1; Sozomenus, 1, 9), unless related to the testator within the sixth degree. Males escaped the penalties of orbitas by having a single (even adoptive) child (Juv. 19.83, 86-89), but by a Senatusconsultum Memmianum adoption was deprived of this effect when resorted to merely in order to evade the statute: but women were not so well off, ingenuae being released only by three, libertinae only by four children (Paul. Sent. rec. 4.9, 1-3). There were exceptions to these rules if the wife was under twenty or over fifty, or the husband under twenty-five or over sixty, and also if the husband was residing away from the wife reipublicae causa (Ulpian, Reg. 16.1). Legacies and inheritances which could not be taken either in whole or part, owing to these provisions of the Lex Julia or Lex Papia Poppaea, became caduca [BONA CADUCA], the law upon which subject was considerably modified by these statutes.

(iv.) Some other provisions have been noticed elsewhere [DECIMARIA; JULIA MISCELLA]. To these may be added the rule giving a preference to candidates for office according to the number of their children (Tac. Ann. 15.19; Plin. Ep. 7.16): the release of ingenuae with three and libertinae with four children from tutela (Gaius, 1.144, 145), and of libertini with a certain number of children from operarum obligationes (Dig. 38, 1). The exemption of persons from discharging the office of tutor or curator jure liberorum (Inst. 1.25, pr.; Dig. 27, 1, 18) was based on these statutes, which also introduced changes (besides those already noticed) into the law of succession, both testamentary and intestate, especially in connexion with libertini (Gaius, 3.42-50, &c.: see PATRONUS). And the Lex Julia also fixed the date at which wills were opened as that at which the rights of legatees should become indefeasible (dies cedit: see LEGATUM), which previously had been the decease of the testator; but the old rule was restored under Justinian.

After the enactment of the Lex Papia Poppaea, it became not unusual to obtain a grant of a fictitious jus liberorum by special favour from the senate, and later from the emperor (D. C. 55.2; Sueton. Claud. 19; Plin. Ep. 2.13, 10.2, 95, 96; Paul. Sent. rec. 4.9, 9), whereby those who had no children, or not enough, were enabled to escape its disabilities and even enjoy most of its benefits (Fragm. Vat. 170). This privilege is mentioned in some inscriptions, on which the abbreviation I. L. H. (jus liberorum kabens) sometimes occurs. The Emperor M. Aurelius enacted that children should be registered by name within thirty days of their birth with the Praefectus Aerarii Saturni (Capitol. Marc. 9; cf. Juv. Sat. 9.84).

The penalties of caelibatus and orbitas were abolished by Constantine and his sons (Cod. Theod. 8, 16), as were the disabilities contained in the Lex Decimaria by Theodosius II. (Cod. Theod. 8, 17, 2, 3), so that little is left of these statutes in the law of Justinian.