Some useful vocabulary and information for reading Gaius' Institutes:

The word 'manumit' or 'manumission' should appear in a good college dictionary if you are unfamiliar with it. 'Mancipate' is where we get our word 'emancipate.' 'Quirites' is another word for Roman so 'quiritary rights' are rights possessed by Roman citizens. 'Usucapt' is to get ownership of something through using it regularly over a long period of time (rather like squatters' rights).

The Twelve Tables are the first collection of published laws in ancient Rome. They were written about 600 years before Gaius' Institutes.

The Julian Act and the Papian-Poppaean Act were passed while Augustus was emperor (about 150 years before Gaius). Augustus wanted to people of the upper classes to procreate so he passed these laws encouraging Roman citizens to have at least three children. Both males and females received benefits for procreating.

Gaius Institutes
Excerpts from Book One

From the translation by Gordon and Robinson.

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8. All our law is about persons, things or actions. We turn to persons first. 9. The main classification in the law of persons is this: all men are either free or slaves. 10. Again, among free men, some are free-born while others are freed. 11. Free-born are those who were born free; freedmen, those who have been manumitted from lawful slavery. 12. Again, there are three classes of freedmen; for they are either Roman citizens, or Latins or in the category of capitulated aliens.

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48. We come to another classification in the law of persons. Some people are independent and some are subject to others. 49. Again, of those persons who are dependent, some are in power, some in marital subordination and some in bondage. 50. Let us examine the dependent category. If we find out who is dependent, we cannot help seeing who is independent. 51. We turn first to the ones in the power of another.

55. Again, we have in our power our children, the offspring of a Roman law marriage. This right is one which only Roman citizens have; there are virtually no other peoples who have such power over their sons as we have over ours. This was made known by the Emperor Hadrian in an edict that he issued concerning those who applied to him for Roman citizenship for themselves and their children. I have not forgotten that the Galatians believe that children are in the power of their parents.

56. Roman citizens are understood to have contracted a Roman law marriage and to have the children of it in power if they take Roman citizens as wives. This also applies to Latin or foreign women with whom they have capacity to enter a Roman law marriage, for the effect of such capacity is that the children follow the status of the father; the result is that not only do they become Roman citizens but are also subject to their father's power. 57. Hence it has been customary for imperial pronouncements to grant to certain veterans the capacity to enter a Roman law marriage with those Latin or foreign women whom they first marry after discharge from the service. Any offspring of that marriage are Roman citizens and in paternal power.

58. Next, we cannot marry any and every woman; for there are certain women whom we must refrain from marrying. 59. Marriage cannot be contracted between people in the relations of parent and child, nor does the capacity to enter a Roman law marriage exist between them - for instance, father and daughter, or mother and son, or grandfather and granddaughter or grandmother and grandson. A union - within these degrees is evil and incestuous. If their relationship as parent and child is based on adoption, they still cannot marry; the same applies even after the adoptive tie is broken. I cannot marry a girl who has become my daughter or granddaughter by adoption, not even if I have emancipated her. 60. A similar but less stringent regime applies to collaterals. 61. Marriage is obviously forbidden between brother and sister, whether they have the same father and mother or are siblings with one common parent. There can be no marriage during the currency of the adoptive relationship between me and my adopted sister, but I can marry her once the adoptive tie is broken by her emancipation. If I myself am emancipated the bar to marriage also goes. 62. It is lawful to marry one's brother's daughter; this practice was introduced when the Emperor Claudius married Agrippina, the daughter of his brother. It is not, on the other hand, lawful to marry one's sister's daughter. This is made known in imperial pronouncements. 63. Again, a man may not marry his paternal or maternal aunt. Again, I may not marry a woman who was previously my mother-in-law or daughter-in-law or step-daughter or step-mother. We have said 'previously', because if the marriage establishing such a relationship is still in being there is another reason why she cannot be married to me; the same woman cannot be married to two men, nor the same man have two wives. 64. Therefore, if someone has contracted an evil and incestuous union, he is regarded as having neither a wife nor children. Children born of such a relationship are regarded as having a mother certainly, a father, on the other hand, not at all; for this reason they are not in his power but in the same position as those conceived casually. These too are considered fatherless, their fathers being unknown. Such sons are called 'spurious'. The word comes from the Greek 'sporaden', meaning 'scattered around' or perhaps from the initial letters of the Latin 'sine patre filii' (sons without a father).

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97. We have just set out the rules under which our real children fall into our power. This also happens with those whom we adopt. 98. Adoptions can be done in two ways, either by authority of the people or through the jurisdiction of a magistrate, for instance, a praetor. 99. The authority of the people is used when we adopt someone who is an independent person. This kind of adoption is called adrogation, because the adopter is asked, that is, interrogated, whether he wishes the person whom he is about to adopt to be his lawful son; and he who is being adopted is asked whether he allows this to be done; and the people are asked whether they command it to be done. Adoption before a magistrate is used for those still within paternal power. This applies to descendants in the first degree, sons or daughters, and to those below, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. 100. That form of adoption effected by the people takes place nowhere except Rome; but the latter form commonly takes place in the provinces before the provincial governors. 101. Women are not adopted by the authority of the people; this is the received opinion. On the other hand, women too are commonly adopted before the praetor, or in the provinces before the proconsul or legate. 102. Again, for a person below the age of puberty adoption effected by the people has sometimes been forbidden and sometimes permitted. At present, according to a letter written to the pontiffs by the excellent Emperor Antoninus Pius, it is permitted under certain conditions, if there appears to be a good reason for the adoption. On the other hand, we can adopt persons of any age before the praetor, and in the provinces before the proconsul or legate. 103. Another feature common to both kinds of adoption is that people unable to have children, eunuchs, can adopt. 104. But women cannot adopt by any method, because they do not have power even over their real children. 105. Then, too, someone adopted, whether by the people or before the praetor or provincial governor, can be given in adoption to someone else. 106. The question of whether a younger person can adopt an older is, indeed, common to both forms of adoption. 107. A characteristic peculiar to adoption effected by the people is that if the person adrogated has children in his power, not only himself but the children too are taken into the power of the adrogator, as grandchildren.

108. Now let us examine those persons who are subordinate to us in marriage. This also is a right peculiar to Roman citizens. 109. While it is customary for both men and women to be in power, only women fall into marital subordination. 110. Formerly there used to be three methods by which they fell into subordination: by usage, by sharing of bread, and by contrived sale. 111. A woman used to fall into marital subordination by usage if she remained in the married state for a continuous period of one year: for she was, as it were, usucapted by a year's possession, and would pass into her husband's kin in the relationship of a daughter. The Twelve Tables therefore provided that if any woman did not wish to become subordinate to her husband in this way, she should each year absent herself for a period of three nights, and in this way interrupt the usage of each year. But this whole legal state was in part repealed by statute, in part blotted out through simple disuse. 112. Women fall into marital subordination through a certain kind of sacrifice made to Jupiter of the Grain, in which bread of coarse grain is employed, for which reason it is also called the sharing of bread. Many other things, furthermore, have to be done and carried out to create this right, together with the saying of specific and solemn words in the presence of ten witnesses. This legal state is still found in our own times; for the higher priests, that is the priests of Jupiter, of Mars and of Quirinus, as also the Sacred Kings, are chosen only if they have been born in marriage made by the sharing of bread, and they themselves cannot hold priestly office without being married by the sharing of bread. 113. Women fall into marital subordination through contrived sale, on the other hand, by means of mancipation, that is, by a sort of imaginary sale; for in the presence of not less than five adult Roman citizens as witnesses, and also a scale-holder, the man to whom the woman becomes subordinate 'buys' her. 114. A woman, however, can make a contrived sale not only with her husband but also with a third party. A contrived sale is indeed said to be made either for the purpose of marriage or of a formal trust. For when she makes a contrived sale with her husband, so as to take the status of a daughter, she is said to have made a contrived sale for the purpose of marriage. On the other hand, the woman who makes a contrived sale for some other purpose, whether with her husband or with a third party - for instance, for the purpose of evading a guardianship - is said to have made a contrived sale for a fiduciary purpose. 115. This last is as follows: if a woman wishes to set aside the guardians she has and to get another, she makes a contrived sale of herself with their authorisation; then she is remancipated by the other party to the contrived sale to the person whom she wishes, and, when she has been formally manumitted by him, she comes to have this man as guardian. He is called the 'fiduciary guardian' as will appear below. 115a. Formerly a contrived sale used also to take place for the purpose of making a will; for at one time women, with certain exceptions, had no right to make a will unless they had made a contrived sale and been remancipated and manumitted. But, on the proposal of the Emperor Hadrian, the Senate remitted this requirement of making a contrived sale. [A woman who makes a fiduciary contrived sale with an outsider does not stand as a daughter to him, but 115b. she who] makes a, contrived sale with her husband for a fiduciary purpose nevertheless comes to stand as a daughter. For if for any reason at all a wife should become subordinate to her husband, the received opinion is that she acquires the rights of a daughter.

116. It remains for us to describe what persons are in bondage. 117. All children, whether male or female, who are in the power of their father can be mancipated by him in the same way as slaves can. 118. The same rule applies to persons in marital subordination; for women can be mancipated by the other parties to the contrived sale in the same way as children by their father. This is so to the extent that, although she stands as a daughter to the other party only in that she is married to him, yet when she is not married and therefore does not stand as a daughter to the other party, she can nevertheless be mancipated by him. 118a. For the most part people are mancipated, both by their father and by other parties to a contrived sale, only when the fathers and other parties wish to release them from their control, as will appear more fully below. 119. Mancipation, then, as we have also said earlier, is a sort of imaginary sale; it is also part of the law peculiar to Roman citizens. It is carried out as follows. There are brought together not less than five witnesses, adult Roman citizens, together with another of the same status, who holds bronze scales and is called the 'scale-holder'. The person who is taking by mancipation, while holding the object says the following words: 'I declare that this man is mine by quiritary right and let him be bought to me with this bronze and bronze scales.' Then he strikes the scales with the bronze, and gives it to him from whom he is taking by mancipation by way of a price. 120. Both slaves and free persons are mancipated in this way, as also animals which are capable of mancipation. In this category are counted cattle, horses, mules and donkeys; again, any land, urban and rustic, which is itself capable of mancipation as is Italian land, is customarily mancipated in this way.

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142. Let us now pass on to another classification. Among those who are not in the power of father or owner, nor in marital subordination, nor in bondage, some are under guardianship or supervision and others are free from both these restraints. We must look first at those under guardianship and supervision; in that way we will also see which persons are free from both these restraints. 143. We start with those under guardianship.

144. Where the head of a family has children in his power he is allowed to appoint guardians for them by will. That is, for males while under puberty but for females however old they are, even when they are married. For it was the wish of the old lawyers that women, even those of full age, should be in guardianship as being scatterbrained. 145. And so if someone appoints a guardian in his will for his son and his daughter and both of them reach puberty, the son ceases to have a guardian but the daughter still continues in guardianship. It is only under the Julian and Papian-Poppaean Acts that women are released from guardianship by the privilege of children. We speak, however, with the exception of the Vestal Virgins, whom even the old lawyers wished to be free of restraint in recognition of their priesthood; this is also provided in the Twelve Tables. 146. We can appoint guardians by will for our grandsons and granddaughters only if our death will not put them into the power of their father. And so, if my son is in my power at the time of my death my grandchildren by him cannot be given guardians in my will, despite being in my power; for obviously on my death they will be in the power of their own father. 147. Since for many other intents and purposes posthumous children are treated as though born before the death, it is received opinion that guardians should be appointed by will for them just as for those already born. This applies where, had they been born during our lifetime, they would have come into our power. For we can institute these children our heirs, even though we may not institute as heirs the posthumous children of outsiders. 148. A guardian can be appointed for a wife in marital subordination just as if she were a daughter, as also for a daughter-in-law who is subordinate to one's son, just as if she were a granddaughter. 149. The most correct form of appointment as guardian is: 'I appoint Lucius Titius as guardian to my children' or 'as guardian to my wife'. But if it is written as: 'Let Titius be guardian to my children' or 'to my wife', he is taken as correctly appointed. 150. In the case of a Wife in marital subordination, a choice of guardians is also accepted; that is, so that she may lawfully be allowed to choose whom she herself wishes as her tutor, in this form: 'I give my wife Titia choice of guardian'. In that event, it is lawful for the wife to choose a guardian, either for all purposes or perhaps for one or two. 151. The choice given may, however, be full or restricted. 152. Full choice is usually given in the form set out just above. Restricted choice is normally given as follows: 'I give my wife Titia one choice only of guardian' or 'two choices only'. 153. There is a great difference between these types of choice. The woman who has full choice can choose a guardian once, twice, three times and again and again; on the other hand, she who has restricted choice, if she has been given one choice only cannot choose more than once; if only two choices, she has no opportunity of choosing more than twice. 154. Guardians who are appointed by name in a will are called appointed guardians, those taken as a result of choice 'optative'.

155. Under the Twelve Tables agnates are made guardians when there is no appointment by will. We call them statutory guardians. 156. Agnates are relatives through the male sex loosely relations through the father, as for instance his brother (if born of the same father), that brother's son, and a grandson through that son, also his father's brother, that uncle's son, and a grandson through that son. People related through females are not agnates. They are related in a way that is recognised by the law of nature, as cognates. And so between an uncle and the son of his sister there is not agnation but cognation. Again, if my father's or mother's sister has a son he is not my agnate. To me he is a cognatic relative, as, of course, in the same system I am to him. On birth, babies enter the family of their father, not of their mother. 157. Certainly in former times, under the regime of the Twelve Tables, women also had their agnates as guardians. Subsequently, however, a Claudian Act was passed which abolished the guardianship of agnates so far as it applies to women. And so a male below puberty can certainly have his adult brother or his paternal uncle as guardian but a woman cannot have such a guardian. 158. The agnatic tie is broken by status-loss. Cognatic relationship, by contrast, is not affected by status-loss. While the logic of state law can destroy rights founded on the state law, it cannot affect rights founded on the law of nature. 159. Status-loss is the exchange of one status for another, and happens in three ways, namely in the first, the second - also called intermediate - or the third degree. 160. Status-loss in the first degree happens when a person loses his citizenship and his liberty together; this happens to those who evade the census, who in accordance with the census regulations are ordered to be sold. This rule ... [applies to capitulated aliens under the AelianSentian Act] who contrary to that statute make their home in Rome; again, women who under the Claudian Resolution of the Senate become the slaves of the owners of those slaves with whom they have cohabited against the will and formal notification of the owners.

161. Second degree or intermediate status-loss means loss of citizenship but not liberty, as where a man is banished from home and hearth. 162. Third degree status-loss occurs where a man keeps both citizenship and freedom but alters his personal standing. This happens with those who are adopted, also with those who make a contrived sale of themselves and those who are transferred by mancipation and manumitted from this state of bondage. Whenever any person is mancipated or manumitted he loses his status. 163. The agnatic tie is destroyed not only by first or second degree status-loss but even by the third; accordingly if a father has emancipated one of two children, on his death neither can by agnatic right be guardian for the other. 164. Though guardianship belongs to the agnatic relations, it does not devolve on all of them at once but only on the closest. ... [17 lines largely illegible, presumably on other aspects of statutory guardianship.]

165. Again by virtue of the Twelve Tables, guardianship of freedmen below puberty and of freedwomen is vested in their patrons and their patrons' descendants. This too is called statutory guardianship, not because provisions for it are spelled out in that code, but because it has been evolved by an interpretation that treats it as though there were express provisions for it. The old lawyers held that the fact that the code vested the estates of intestate freedmen and freedwomen in their patrons and their patrons' descendants meant that it intended to vest the guardianship in them too. They inferred this from its treatment of agnates; the code made them heirs and also imposed guardianship upon them.

166. Modelled on the case of patrons, another kind of guardianship, also called statutory, has been evolved. For if someone mancipates his son, or his grandson by a son and so forth while they are under age, or his daughter, or granddaughter by a son and so forth, whether she be adult or under age, to a third party with the condition that they be remancipated to himself, and when they have been remancipated he manumits them, he will be their statutory guardian. 166a. There are yet other cases of guardianship, called fiduciary, that is, those which come to us because we have manumitted a free person who has been mancipated to us either by a father or by the other party to a contrived sale. 167. But in the case of male and female Latins below puberty, guardianship does not always vest in those who granted them liberty, but in those to whom they belonged by quiritary right before their manumission. For this reason, if a female slave is yours by quiritary right but is a part of my estate, my grant of freedom alone makes her a Latin, without any grant by you, and her property vests in me, but her guardianship goes to you; this is a provision of the Junian Act. And so, if a female slave is made a Latin by someone who both has her in his estate and has quiritary ownership, both her property and her guardianship vest in the same person.

168. Agnates, patrons and those who manumit free persons are permitted to transfer the guardianship of women to someone else by assignment in court. It is not, however, permitted to assign the guardianship of young children, because this is not seen as burdensome, finishing as it does with puberty. 169. The person to whom guardianship is assigned is called the assignatory guardian. 170. On his dying or suffering status-loss, guardianship reverts to the guardian who assigned it; if he too has died or suffered status-loss, the guardianship passes from the assignatory guardian and reverts to whoever is in the next degree in relation to the guardianship after the man who assigned it. 171. As regards agnates, however, no question of assignatory guardianship arises at the present time, since agnatic guardianship for women was abolished by the Claudian Act. 172. Certain jurists have thought that fiduciary guardians too do not have the right to assign their guardianship, since they placed the burden on themselves. Even if this opinion is accepted, yet the same principle should not be said to apply to a parent who has given his daughter, granddaughter or great-granddaughter to another by mancipation on the condition that she be remancipated to himself and has then manumitted her after the remancipation, since he is viewed as a statutory guardian, whose position is no less deserving of respect than that of patrons.

173. Furthermore, women are permitted by a resolution of the Senate to apply for another guardian in place of one who is absent. On the application, the previous guardian lapses; nor does it matter how long his absence is. 174. An exception is, however, made so that a freedwoman is not allowed to apply for a guardian in place of her absent patron. 175. We also regard a parent as being in the same position as a patron, deriving his statutory guardianship as he does from the fact that he has manumitted his daughter, granddaughter or great-granddaughter after she has been remancipated to him. Yet his descendants are counted as being in the position of fiduciary guardian; the children of a patron, however, obtain the same guardianship as their father held. 176. But sometimes it is permissible to apply for a guardian in place even of an absent patron, for instance, in order to enter upon an inheritance. 177. The Senate has ruled that the same holds good when the patron's son is a young child. 178. For under the Julian Act on the regulation of marriages a woman who is in the legitimate guardianship of a young child is permitted to apply to the Urban Praetor for a guardian for the purpose of constituting a dowry. 179. A patron's son, even if he is under puberty, will still become the guardian of his father's freedwoman, although he cannot give authorisation in any matter, since he himself is not permitted to act at all without the authorisation of his own guardian. 180. Again, if a woman is in the statutory guardianship of someone who is mad or dumb, she is permitted by a resolution of the Senate to apply for a guardian for the purpose of constituting a dowry. 181. It is obvious that in these cases the guardianship remains preserved for the patron and his son. 182. Moreover, the Senate has ruled that if the guardian of a male or female child has been removed from the guardianship as suspect, or if he has been excused on lawful grounds, another guardian is appointed in his place; on this, the earlier guardian loses his guardianship. 183. All these practices are observed in the same manner in Rome and in the provinces, save that in the provinces the application for a guardian must be made to the provincial governor.

184. In former times, when procedure by actions in the law was in use, a guardian was also appointed on the grounds that a matter between the guardian and the woman or child had to go to court; for a guardian could not give his authorisation where his own interest was involved. Another guardian was appointed with whose authorisation the action in the law could be concluded. He was called the 'praetorian' guardian, because he was appointed by the Urban Praetor. But after the abolition of the actions in the law, some jurists think that this kind of appointment of guardian has fallen into disuse; it is accepted by others, however, that it is still in use if an action is brought in a statutory court.

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190. There seems, on the other hand, to have been no very worthwhile reason why women who have reached the age of maturity should be in guardianship; for the argument which is commonly believed, that because they are scatterbrained they are frequently subject to deception and that it was proper for them to be under guardians' authority, seems to be specious rather than true. For women of full age deal with their own affairs for themselves, and while in certain instances the guardian interposes his authorisation for form's sake, he is often compelled by the praetor to give authorisation, even against his wishes. 191. For this reason, a woman is not granted any action against her guardian on account of the guardianship; but where guardians are dealing with the affairs of male or female children, when the wards grow up the action on guardianship calls the guardians to account. 192. Of course, the statutory guardianships of patrons and parents are understood to have some efficacy. These persons are not compelled to give their authorisation, whether for making a will or for alienating things capable of mancipation or for undertaking obligations, unless very significant grounds arise for the alienation of things capable of mancipation and the undertaking of an obligation. All these matters are so arranged for the sake of the guardians themselves, because the inheritances of women who die intestate vest in them; they cannot be excluded from the inheritance by a will, nor may the value of the inheritance be diminished before it reaches them by selling off the more valuable property and incurring debts. 193. Among foreigners, women are not in guardianship in the same way as with us, yet they are for the most part in a sort of guardianship; see, for example, the statute of the Bithynians, which orders that if a woman enters into a contract her husband or her adult son must give authorisation.

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This translation is from W.M. Gordon and O.F. Robinson, The Institutes of Gaius, Cornell, 1988.