Roman Marriage

Hey Everyone! Okay, so we got out of school early due to the bad weather. Now,I have my friend,Lexi,helping me out with this blog post! In latin class this past week, we have been learning about the customs of a Roman marriage and we want to tell you some interesting facts about it. Also I will share someting amusing that the girls in Latin4 class said today regarding the picture below. Here's some cool facts:

~ Roman girls usually got married when they were either 13 or 14 years old. Try pulling that off today!

~ The girl's husband was normally chosen by her father or other gaurdian. My dad likes this one:)

~Men usually got married the first time when they were in their late teens or early twenties. However, if they had been married previously, there be an age difference of more than twenty years. Wow!

~The wedding ring was put on the third finger of the girl's left hand. The Romans placed the ring on the third finger because they believed that a nerve ran directly from the heart to this phalange.

~ For most of the girl's life, she had worn an amulet or locket, called a bulla. The night before her wedding she took it off and dedicated it and other childish belongings to the household gods. Her husband had already dedicated his bulla when he became a Roman citizen at the age of seventeen. (During the first year at my school, everyone made their own bulla out of construction paper and stickers. Most of us have lost ours,but my cousin, Aundrea,still has hers. She might think that she really has to wear hers until she gets married. How sweet...)


~ Roman law stated that there were two different types of marriage.
1) cum manu- the bride was no longer a part of her father's family; she was in complete control of her husband. This kind of marriage was only used by a few aristocratic families( it nearly died out by the end of the 1st century AD.)
2) sine manu- this type was far more common than a cum manu marriage. In sine manu, the bride was legally still cosidered a part of her father's family. It was fairly simple to enter into a sine manu marriage. The couple first stated their intention to be marrid. Then, they lived together. That's it- they were then considered to be married.

~ The purpose of a Roman marriage was to form alliances and to produce and bring up children. They did not marry because they were in love. If consent was given, and the girl was of the right age, she married whomever was chosen for her. It didn't matter if the prospective husband was fifty years old or if she loved another boy who, perhaps, wasn't old enough to be her grandpa.

~ A Roman wife, comparitively, had more rights than other women in her time. She was not confined to the home and could visit friends, go to the baths, the theatre, and accompany her husband to dinner parties. She also had the power to own property and divorce her husband if they had a sine manu marriage.(Compare this to the women of classical Athens). Women were also highly respected in the community. Running a household was very complicated and valued. She was in charge of a large number of household slaves,as well.