BERGER, ENCYCLOPEDIC DICTIONARY OF ROMAN LAW: LEX IULIA / POPPEA

Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus /Lex Papia Poppea: (10 B.C) This law together with another one, also of Augustus, the Lex Papia Poppea (A.D. 9) deals with several problems connected with marriage. In the writings of the Roman jurists the two laws appear both as two distinctive legislative acts and as one unified piece of legislation, sometimes called simply lex or leges. The earlier law contained several prohibitions of marriage, such as between senators or their sons and their freedwomen, between free-born men and women of bad behavior or women convicted of adultery. Consorts married in violation of these provisions have no reciprocal rights of succession. Another tendency of the Augustan legislation was to promote marriage and the procreation of children in order to prevent a further decline of morality and family life, widespread in the last decades of the Republic. Various privileges were granted to married people and parents of children whereas on the other hand severe economic and social disadvantages were imposed on unmarried persons (coelibes) and childless married person (orbi). A consul who had more children than his colleague had some preference over the latter. Fathers were excused from public charges (munera) and tutorship. Married women with three children (four, if they were freedwomen) were not submitted to guardianship (tutela mulierum). See US LIBERORUM. The second statute excluded unmarried men over twenty-five and under sixty and unmarried women over twenty and under fifty from succession under a will. For further provisions, see COELIBES, ORBI, CAPACITAS, PATER SOLITARIUS, CADUCA, DIES CEDENS LEGATI, EREPTORIUM, LEX IULIA MISCELLA, SEATUSCONSULTUM CALVISIANUM, SENATUSCONSULTUM MEMMIANUM, PRINCIPES LEGIBUS SOLUTUS . - C. 8.57. (Nicolini § 603)