Dreikindrecht
The right to three children (also known as the right to three children , lat. Ius trium liberorum ) was a measure to reorganize society at the beginning of the Roman Empire .
background
While in the Greek póleis population growth was slowed down, not least through infanticide , attempts were sometimes made in the Roman Empire to stimulate it again after famine, war or epidemics.
The marriage laws of Augustus 18 BC Chr. And 9 AD ( Lex Iulia et Papia ) , which this had decreed in exercise of the "cura legum et morum" (supervision of laws and morals) entrusted to him and which also included the right to three children , should marriage after the Roman civil wars - and fight childlessness in the higher classes and contribute to the restoration of public morality.
content
Parents were given the right to three children if they had at least three biological or adopted children. Citizens who had made a special contribution to Rome could be granted the right to have three children on an honorary basis, for example the poet Martial . Freedmen had to have four children ( ius quattuor liberorum ) in Italy and five children in the provinces in order to receive the right to have three children.
The right to have three children granted special privileges, for example free entry to theater performances or faster promotion to higher offices. This right turned the mothers into legally competent persons. They were released from the tutelage of the tutor mulieris and were allowed to manage their property themselves, for example. On the other hand, Augustus refused his own daughter Julia this freedom, even though she had five children. At the same time, married couples without children lost the right to half of an inheritance.
At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, Pliny the Younger , who despite three marriages had no children, thanked Emperor Trajan for granting him the right to have three children :
"Express, domine, verbis non possum, quantum mihi gaudium attuleris, quod me dignum putasti iure trium liberorum."
"I have no words, Lord, to express the joy you have given me that you have found me worthy of the right to three children."
Individual evidence
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↑ Bejarano Alomia, Pedro Paul: Infanticide . Criminological, legal history and comparative law considerations after the abolition of § 217 StGB a. F. Univ.-Diss. Berlin 2009.
C. Summary of legal history. Pp. 48 ff., 58. - ↑ Gai. 1, 194.
- ↑ Thomas Rüfner : Legal capacity and capacity to act Roman private law 6, December 2, 2009, p. 7.
- ^ Max Kaser : Roman private law. 20th, revised and expanded edition, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-65672-9 .
- ↑ Pliny: Epistulae. 10, 2.