Брак са manusоm
Marriage with Manus

Summary/Abstract: The definition of the marriage by Modestine, the last great jurist of classical jurisprudence, rather suits the old times than more recent times when it was really given: "Marriage is a relationship between husband and wife, the community of all forms of life, the institution of divine and human rights." Looking from today's perspective at the institution of marriage in ancient Rome, we must admit that it seems a bit paradoxical and strange. The marriage of love was a very rare exception. It was a private act, quite opposite of contemporary marriages. People did not go to the registrar or the priest and only the agreement between the parents was sufficient. The Romans believed that a woman's place was at home, and that the best reputation of a woman is that no one mentions her by good or evil deeds, that she is unnoticeable. The Roman family law has two concepts of marriage: Marriage with manus (cum manu) and marriage without manus (sine manu). Marriage with manus is characteristic of the beginning of Roman history and it was retained as the dominant form of marriage as long as the Roman society was based on a closed home economy. The main objective of this kind of marriage is to have children, to extend the family. Later on, this marriage vanished and the marriage without manus appears as a general form of the relationship between man and woman, in which a woman’s position becomes better and relations between spouses become much freer.

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