Child Brides

[caldrail]

Child Brides

 

The Romans entered upon marriage at a very young age; both partners might be in their teens at the time of marriage. It was not, however, unusual for a girl in her teens to be maried to a man considerably older than herself who had already been married once or twice before. Some girls were even married before they reached puberty. The following inscription, a first century BC epitaph found at Rome, tells us about Aurelia Philematium, who was married at age seven.

 

"I was called, while alive, Aurelia Philematium, a woman chaste and modest, unsoiled by the common crowd, faithful to her husband. My husband, whom, alas, I have now left, was a fellow freedman. He was really like a father to me. When I was seven years old he embraced me. Now I am forty, and in the power of death. Through my constantcare, my husband flourished."

 

As the Romans Did - Jo-Ann Shelton

 

Extraordinary. Notice the complete lack of any moral outrage or shame for a marriage that in our time would have police arriving in SWAT trucks. Granted, the above example is a marriage between two freedpersons, who are probably less concerned with the niceties of social ettiquette than the privileged, but then... Aurelia Philematium is described as a good girl. So clearly, her behaviour offset any criticism of what might have seemed even then a dubious marriage.

 

Does anyone have any other examples of these matches?

 

Edited April 27, 2009 by caldrail

[Kosmo]

Extraordinary. Notice the complete lack of any moral outrage or shame for a marriage that in our time would have police arriving in SWAT trucks.

 

I doubt the part about the SWAT trucks. Brides in early teens and even younger are fairly common in Islam, India and other cultures including gypsies.

[Nephele]

Caldrail, this is not an example of "marriage customs in Roman society," as the participants were not members of Roman society at the time (in the formal sense), but instead were slaves residing within the same household and joined in what was called contubernium -- not legal matrimonium -- regardless of what they chose to call it themselves.

 

Author Jo-Ann Shelton does not go into much depth in that book of yours. In fact, the author is downright misleading in her presentation of her example. If anything, her book serves as an illustration of the phrase "a little learning is a dangerous thing."

 

For more than a little learning, I refer you to A Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006). The authors not only supply (courtesy of the British Museum) an illustration of this 1st century BCE funerary stele of Aurelia Phlematium/Philematio, but also provide an in-depth translation and explanation. I quote the following (pages 335-337):

 

Hermia and Philematium had been fellow-slaves in the Aurelian household for some time, and were freed by the same owner... perhaps with a view to their marriage. Their relationship before their freedom was not a formal Roman marriage but contubernium (cohabitation). Philematio's words, in the first person, tell us that Hermia took her into his care from the time she was 7, so that he was "more than her fellow-freedman but, over and above that, her parent (parens)." Until she died at the age of 40, she had been a faithful and virtuous wife, knowing no other relationship... Here are the slave echoes of the upper-class ideal of uniuira, "knowing only one husband," which remained a desirable quality even in a society of high mortality and frequent remarrriage.

 

Although slaves could not legally marry, they often formed marital relationships and produced children.... Even when one or both partners was not a free citizen, they often used marital vocabulary and ideals. Aurelia Philematio's epitaph reflects that, and the iconography reinforces the words...

 

Philematio's monument is not as elegant, in lettering or form, as many later ones. But it must still have involved considerable expense. It is partly a tribute to her husband's love, which he professes was equal to hers for him (studio parili),. But it was also a tribute to how well he had done in his trade of butcher (lanius) and in moving out of slavery and being able to make a proper Roman marriage...

 

No doubt there were many such unions among slaves within Roman households, as there could be little that masters might be able to do to prevent it, human nature being what human nature is. Perhaps such unions might even have been encouraged by Roman masters, as slaves encumbered by spouses and resulting children might be less inclined to run off.

 

Also note that the relationship between Hermia and Philematium, when Philematium was only seven years old, appears to have been more of a guardian/child sort of relationship. It is likely that the contubernium was not consumated until Philematium may have at least attained puberty. As I'd stated in a previous thread, Roman betrothal could take place when a girl was as young as (but no younger than) seven years of age. Even slaves might imitate such custom, in their own way.

 

But Roman law was what Roman law was and, in the 1st century BCE (the time in which the epitaph in question was written), marriage, and all it entailed, between an adult Roman citizen and a prepubescent child was by no means a legally recognized "marriage."

 

-- Nephele

[sylla]

The lower age limit for marriage was explicitly established by the Roman law for puberty, meaning the beginning of reproductive capabilities (nubilis for women); for most of the Roman Era, the limit for women was 12 years, as it is described in the first book of Gaius' Institutiones (II century AD); by the time of Justinian, this limit has been upgraded to 14 years, no doubt because of the influence of the Christian Church. At least for the Roman elite, both textual and epitaph's evidence have consistently shown that most women married between the ages of 12 and 16 (Median age = 14).

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

There were certain conditions that had to be satisfied before a legal marriage could be contracted even by citizens. One of them being that both of the parties should be pūberēs; there could be no marriage between children. Although no precise age was fixed by law, it is probable that fourteen and twelve were the lowest limit for the man and the woman respectively.

 

Wasn't Cornelia Cinna Minor only 13 yrs of age when she married the 18yr old Caesar?

[Lost_Warrior]

The passage says they KNEW each other when she was seven years old and that they were involved in some way...but was it romantic? It's hard to tell (I've heard 'embraced' used to mean something else entirely but I'm not sure this is the case here.)

 

I don't see what's shameful or even questionable about two people meeting- one at a very early age- and later coming to be romantically involved. While eyebrows may be raised at huge age differences between partners in modern Western countries it wasn't always that way, nor is it that way in much of the world.

[sylla]

There were certain conditions that had to be satisfied before a legal marriage could be contracted even by citizens. One of them being that both of the parties should be pūberēs; there could be no marriage between children. Although no precise age was fixed by law, it is probable that fourteen and twelve were the lowest limit for the man and the woman respectively.

The law is quoted in the Institutiones of Gaius, 1, 22 pr.

[sylla]

The passage says they KNEW each other when she was seven years old and that they were involved in some way...but was it romantic? It's hard to tell (I've heard 'embraced' used to mean something else entirely but I'm not sure this is the case here.)

 

I don't see what's shameful or even questionable about two people meeting- one at a very early age- and later coming to be romantically involved. While eyebrows may be raised at huge age differences between partners in modern Western countries it wasn't always that way, nor is it that way in much of the world.

This famous inscription is currently at the British Museum; please don't get mistaken by its euphemistic adaptation on Ms. Shelton book.

The Latin relevant phrase is GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT, which is translated by the museum as "(He) took me to his bosom". "Bosom" is also an euphemism here, because GREMIO is in fact an explicit genital reference.

Edited April 28, 2009 by sylla

[caldrail]

The passage says they KNEW each other when she was seven years old and that they were involved in some way...but was it romantic? It's hard to tell (I've heard 'embraced' used to mean something else entirely but I'm not sure this is the case here.)

 

I must admit I simply assumed the phrase meant acceptance as a partner. That is what the epitaph implies. There is of course the possibility that the relationship was originally based on something more practical - such as a young girl in desperate need of foster parents. Nonetheless, the epitaph doesn't indicate a later marriage - it merely says they were together from that point, hence the conclusion by Shelton.

[Ingsoc]

The Latin relevant phrase is GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT, which is translated by the museum as "(He) took me to his bosom". "Bosom" is also an euphemism here, because GREMIO is in fact an explicit genital reference.

 

The original Latin passage is "SEPTEM ME NAATAM ANNORVM GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT".

 

According to the The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary Germium could be translated as lap, bosom; female genital parts; interior (btw the female genital parts doesn't appear in The Cassell's Latin Dictionary so it's probably wasn't common meaning) and Ipse is masculine it's has to refer to her husband hence the translation of "lap, bosom" would be the only logical translation (I also find it hard to believe that someone would choose to put such as explicit sexual references on their tomb stone...).

 

My impression is the he took her under his wing when she was seven years old since she had no relatives or they couldn't look after her (see also the passage which say he was like a father to her) and only later this "father-daughter" relationship changed to one of husband-wife.

[Aurelia]

The original Latin passage is "SEPTEM ME NAATAM ANNORVM GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT".

 

There are so many tombstones of children. It is heartbreaking to read...

[sylla]

The Latin relevant phrase is GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT, which is translated by the museum as "(He) took me to his bosom". "Bosom" is also an euphemism here, because GREMIO is in fact an explicit genital reference.

 

The original Latin passage is "SEPTEM ME NAATAM ANNORVM GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT".

 

According to the The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary Germium could be translated as lap, bosom; female genital parts; interior (btw the female genital parts doesn't appear in The Cassell's Latin Dictionary so it's probably wasn't common meaning) and Ipse is masculine it's has to refer to her husband hence the translation of "lap, bosom" would be the only logical translation (I also find it hard to believe that someone would choose to put such as explicit sexual references on their tomb stone...).

 

My impression is the he took her under his wing when she was seven years old since she had no relatives or they couldn't look after her (see also the passage which say he was like a father to her) and only later this "father-daughter" relationship changed to one of husband-wife.

"Genital" doesn't mean "*or*".

I restricted the analysis to the final half of this sentence, because the first one (SEPTEM ME NAATAM ANNORVM) is undisputed; it's an adverbial phrase of time, the age at which the action happened (note the archaic double vowel).

In the relevant phrase (GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT) the masculine reflexive pronoun "Ipse" is the subject (the husband Aurelius) who performed the reflexive action of receiving himself (Recepit) at the "Gremio" (dative/ablative object); this is a nice synechdoche, where a part is used to represent the whole (ie, the wife Aurelia). This kind of figure is quite common in poetry and anthropology.

Then, Aurelius received himself at Aurelia when she was seven years old; within the context of this memorial, it clearly implied the beginning of this couple

[sylla]

The original Latin passage is "SEPTEM ME NAATAM ANNORVM GREMIO IPSE RECEPIT".

 

There are so many tombstones of children. It is heartbreaking to read...

Thanks Ingsoc for sending us to such a nice website; it couldn't be any more didactic.

The inscription discussed on this thread is "A Traditional Roman Funerary Inscription: Aurelius Hermia & Aurelia Philematio", the eleventh link from the opening of this page.