tecs.' None of this is iiistificd h\' the sources, and such an explanation is needed oid\' if one takes a fornialistic attitude to legal de\elopinent. A further use of nunicipatio was in marriage ((/'.i.iiA: "Bv coemptio women come into mumis (matrimonial power) hv mumipiitio, that is by a sort of imaginar\’ sale; thus, in the presence of not fewer than fue Roman citizen witnesses aho\e puhert\’, he into whose ;/w;//o'she comes, buys the woman.""' In early Rome, marriage was either cum nuniii or sijic nuniii. The former put the wife into the family and under the power of the husband, or of his ptitcti'iimilius if he had one. The latter left her in her famih', or in her o\\ n control, sui inris. Coemptio was one of the major waws of putting the wife into the of her husband, and it e.xisted from an earh' dare. \\ herher coemptio originalK’ was a true sale cannot be established. Oertainh' one can draw no argument from the fact that the ceremoin’ imobed the appearanee of a sale, since a similar procedure operated for adoption, which certainly did not inx’oKe sale and purchase. In all probabilitx’, coemptio was a de\ ice to extend marriage cum maun to segments of the population that could not make use o\ confarreatio for that purpose, since the latter reijuired the presence of some of Rome's highest religious dignitaries and hence was \er\' much confined to the most powerful families. One easilv oxerlooked derail in coemptio is instructixe regarding Roman legal opportunism. I here is no indication that coemptio xvas restricted to situations in xxhich a xvoman had a paterfamilias, and it xvould be x erx' surprising if it xvere. But if the xvoman xvere sai inris, 17 Privatrecht 1, p. 108 and the authors he cites. Against the notion of divided ownership see above all Diosdi, Ownership, pp. and Watson, XII Tables, pp. i25ff. Most recently, Kaser defended his view of relative ownership and divided ownership in "Relatives Eigentum," ZSS 102 (1985), pp.iff. P. Birks, "The Roman Law concept of Dominium and the Idea of Absolute Ownership," Acta luridica (1985), pp. iff., says nothing apropos. 18 Cf. G.1.123; Boethius, II in Topica Ciceronis 3.14; Servius, In Vergilii Georgica 1.31; Isidorus, Etymologiae s-2/t-. Nonius Marcellus, s.v. nubentes. 71
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