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Patria potestas

Patria potestas ("power of the father") relates to the power a father has over his family; it is (almost literally) a term to describe not only the patriarch but the system of patriarchy within Roman families.

I'm going to be writing a short essay on it - I'll compile my sources here and show my messy brainstorming, then attack it after.

Sources

  • penelope.uchicago.edu - Bill Thayer has a comprehensive page on potestas here, as it relates to a few things, including the magisterium, the Roman family, Roman slaves. This seems to be originally defined in "A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875."
    • "Potestas is also one of the words by which is expressed the power that one private person has over another, the other two being Manus and Mancipium. The Potestas is either Dominica, that is, owner­ship as exhibited in the relation of Master and Slave [Servus]; or Patria as exhibited in the relation of Father and Child. The Mancipium was framed after the analogy of the Potestas Dominica [Mancipium]."
    • It does not seem that the Patria Potestas was ever viewed among the Romans as absolutely equivalent to the Dominica Potestas, or as involving owner­ship of the child; and yet the original notion of the Patria came very near to that of the Dominica Potestas.
    • The father could exheredate his son, he could substitute another person as heir to him [Heres], and he could by his will appoint him a tutor.
    • The Patria Potestas was dissolved in various ways. [...] including by the death of the father [...] the children adopting offices (daughter: Vestal) [...] emancipation of the child by the father (?) [...] or if the father lost his citizenship.

Sidenote: I love this person's little site, his picture of him and his chicken is lovely, and I don't even know his name or anything about him other than that he has a cat named Boo and the site was made on a Macintosh 7100 (named Penelope, now retired).

  • Institutes of Roman Law on DE PATRIA POTESTATE: "a man has power over his own children [...], a right peculiar to citizens of Rome, for there is scarcely any other nation where fathers are invested with such power over their children as at Rome; and this the late Emperor Hadrian declared in the edict he published respecting certain petitioners for a grant of Roman citizenship to themselves and their children [...]"
    • "Patria potestas was founded on consuetudinary law" (originated from customs/practices instead of written legislature)
    • "Over the person of the child the father had originally a power of life and death. [...] But in later times this power was withdrawn. Hadrian condemned to deportation a father who in the hunting-field killed his son who had committed adultery with his stepmother" [...] "Fathers retained the power of moderate chastisement, but severe punishment could only be inflicted by the magistrate"
    • "Originally also parents had the power of selling (mancipandi) their children into bondage, thus producing a capitis minutio, or degradation of status"
      • Only to another Roman citizen. Rule was later withdrawn, however.