Pater-familias in United States

Pater-familias Definition

(Lat.) In civil law. One who was sui juris, and not subject to the paternal power. In order to give a correct idea of what was understood in the Roman law by this term, it is proper to refer briefly to the artificial organization of the Roman family, the greatest moral phenomenon in the history of the human race. The comprehensive term familia embraced both persons and property. Money, lands, houses, slaves, children, all constituted part of this artificial family, this juridical entity, this legal patrimony, the title to which was exclusively vested in the chief or pater- familias, who alone was capax dominii, and who belonged to himself, aui juris. The word pater-familias is by no means equivalent to the modem expression father of a family, but means “proprietor,” in the strongest sense of that term. It is he, qui in domo dominium habet, in whom were centered all property, all power, all authority. He was, in a word, the lord and master whose authority was unlimited. No one but he who was sui juris, who was paterfamilias, was capable of exercising any right of property, or wielding any superiority or power over anything, for nothing could belong to him who was himself alieni juris. Hence the children of the filii-f amilias, as well as those of slaves, belonged to the pater-familias. In the same manner, everything that was acquired by the sons or slaves formed a part of the familia, and, consequently, belonged to its chief. This absolute property and power of the paterfamilias only ceased with his life, unless he voluntarily parted with them by a sale; for the alienation by sale is invariably the symbol resorted to for the purpose of dissolving the stern dominion of the paterfamilias over those belonging to the familia. Thus, both emancipation and adoption are the results of imaginary sales, per imaginarias venditnones. As the daughter rer malned in the family of her fathe-r, grandfather, or great-grandfather, as the case might be, notwithstanding her marriage, it followed as a necessary consequence that the child never belonged to the same family as its mother. There is no civil relationship between them; they are natural relations, cognati, but they are not legally related to each other, agnati, and therefore the child never inherits from its mother, nor the mother from her child. There was, however, a means by which the wife might enter into the family and subject herself to the power of her husband, in mmiu mariti, and thereby establish a legal relationship between herself and her husband. This marital power of the husband over the wife was generally acquired either coemptione, by the purdiase of the wife by the husband from the pater-familias, or msm, by the prescription based on the possession of one year, the same by which the title to movable proijerty was acquired according to the principles governing the usucapio (usu capere, to obtain by use). Another mode of obtaining the same end was the eonfarreatio, a sacred ceremony performed by the breaking and eating of a small cake, farreum, by the married couple. It was supposed that by an observance of this ceremony the marital power was produced by the intervention of the gods. This solemn mode of celebrating marriages was peculiar to the patrician families. By means of these fictions and ceremonies, the wife became, in the eye of the law, the daughter of her husband, and the sister of the children to whom she gave birth, who would otherwise have been strangers to her. Well might Gains say. Fere nulli alii sunt homines qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem, qualem nos habemus. This extraordinary organization of the Roman family, and the unlimited powers and authority vested in the pater-familias, continued until the reign of Justinian, who, by his 118th Novel, enacted on the 9th of August, 544, abolished the distinction between the agnatio and eognatio, and established the order of inheritance, which, with some modifications, continues to exist at the present day in all countries whose jurisprudence is based on the civil law. See “Patria Potestas.”

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(Lat.) In civil law. One who was sui juris, and not subject to the paternal power. In order to give a correct idea of what was understood in the Roman law by this term, it is proper to refer briefly to the artificial organization of the Roman family, the greatest moral phenomenon in the history of the human race. The comprehensive term familia embraced both persons and property. Money, lands, houses, slaves, children, all constituted part of this artificial family, this juridical entity, this legal patrimony, the title to which was exclusively vested in the chief or pater- familias, who alone was capax dominii, and who belonged to himself, aui juris. The word pater-familias is by no means equivalent to the modem expression father of a family, but means “proprietor,” in the strongest sense of that term. It is he, qui in domo dominium habet, in whom were centered all property, all power, all authority. He was, in a word, the lord and master whose authority was unlimited. No one but he who was sui juris, who was paterfamilias, was capable of exercising any right of property, or wielding any superiority or power over anything, for nothing could belong to him who was himself alieni juris. Hence the children of the filii-f amilias, as well as those of slaves, belonged to the pater-familias. In the same manner, everything that was acquired by the sons or slaves formed a part of the familia, and, consequently, belonged to its chief. This absolute property and power of the paterfamilias only ceased with his life, unless he voluntarily parted with them by a sale; for the alienation by sale is invariably the symbol resorted to for the purpose of dissolving the stern dominion of the paterfamilias over those belonging to the familia. Thus, both emancipation and adoption are the results of imaginary sales, per imaginarias venditnones. As the daughter rer malned in the family of her fathe-r, grandfather, or great-grandfather, as the case might be, notwithstanding her marriage, it followed as a necessary consequence that the child never belonged to the same family as its mother. There is no civil relationship between them; they are natural relations, cognati, but they are not legally related to each other, agnati, and therefore the child never inherits from its mother, nor the mother from her child. There was, however, a means by which the wife might enter into the family and subject herself to the power of her husband, in mmiu mariti, and thereby establish a legal relationship between herself and her husband. This marital power of the husband over the wife was generally acquired either coemptione, by the purdiase of the wife by the husband from the pater-familias, or msm, by the prescription based on the possession of one year, the same by which the title to movable proijerty was acquired according to the principles governing the usucapio (usu capere, to obtain by use). Another mode of obtaining the same end was the eonfarreatio, a sacred ceremony performed by the breaking and eating of a small cake, farreum, by the married couple. It was supposed that by an observance of this ceremony the marital power was produced by the intervention of the gods. This solemn mode of celebrating marriages was peculiar to the patrician families. By means of these fictions and ceremonies, the wife became, in the eye of the law, the daughter of her husband, and the sister of the children to whom she gave birth, who would otherwise have been strangers to her. Well might Gains say. Fere nulli alii sunt homines qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem, qualem nos habemus. This extraordinary organization of the Roman family, and the unlimited powers and authority vested in the pater-familias, continued until the reign of Justinian, who, by his 118th Novel, enacted on the 9th of August, 544, abolished the distinction between the agnatio and eognatio, and established the order of inheritance, which, with some modifications, continues to exist at the present day in all countries whose jurisprudence is based on the civil law. See “Patria Potestas.”

This definition of Pater-familias is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary. This entry needs to be proofread.