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.