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Societas Omnium Bonorum and Dos in Classical Roman Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Hans Ankum
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1. It is with the greatest pleasure that I contribute this paper to this volume published for my dear friend Reuven Yaron. He was one of the very first foreign colleagues whom I invited to give lectures for the students of the Amsterdam Law Faculty some months after my appointment in 1965, and eight years ago Reuven Yaron was a visiting professor at our University for a period of six months. On that occasion he read fascinating papers on Ancient Near Eastern laws and brilliantly participated in my Papinian-seminar, where also other participants such as Eric Pool and Laurens Winkel made numerous astute remarks. I therefore decided to make Papinian's text D. 17.2.81, concerning societas omnium bonorum and dos, the main topic of my contribution to this volume published in honour of Reuven Yaron. However, I found in the Digest-title 17.2 two additional texts by other classical lawyers, viz. Paul and Gaius, in which they also examine problems in connection with societas omnium bonorum and dos (D.17.2.65.16 and D.17.2.66). It is instructive to discuss these three texts together in this paper. In each of the three texts the situation is different. In the cases that Paul and Gaius deal with, it is the husband who, having received a dowry, is a socius omnium bonorum (Situation I). In Papinian's text which is — even for Papinian! — exceptionally rich in legal ideas, the lawyer gives solutions for many legal questions in a situation, wherein a father, being one of two socii omnium bonorum, promised or gave a dowry to his son-in-law on behalf of his daughter (Situation II).

Type
Roman Law
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 29 , Issue 1-2 , Winter-Spring 1995 , pp. 105 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1995

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References

1 Wieacker, F., Societas. Hausgemeinschaft und Erwerbsgesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des römischen Gesellschaftsrechts (Weimar, 1936)Google Scholar and “Das Gesellschaftsverhältnis des klassischen Rechts” (1952) 69 ZSS 302–344.

2 See Lenel, , Das Edictum Perpetuum, (Leipzig, 3rd ed., 1927) 297.Google Scholar

3 The societas quaestus, the societas unius negotiationis (as that of bankers and of slave-merchants) and the societas unius rei.

4 Guarino, A., Societas consensu contracta, (Napoli, 1972)Google Scholar reprinted in La Società in diritto romano, (Napoli, 1988) 1–120.

5 See Guarino, op. cit., at 5.

6 Kaser, M., “Neuere Literatur zur ‘societas’” (1975) 41 SDHJ 279–333Google Scholar and d'Ors, A. “Societas” y “Consortium” Revista de Estudios Historico-juridicos, Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Publicaciones de la Escuela de Derecho, II (1977) 33–44.Google Scholar

7 Kunkel, W., “Ein unbeachtetes Zeugnis über das römische consortium” (1954) 4 Annales de la Faculté de Droit d'Istanbul 56–78.Google Scholar

8 Tellegen, J.W., “Was there a consortium in Pliny's letter VIII 18?” (1980) 27 RIDA 3e série, 296–312.Google Scholar

9 See the sources interpreted by Kaser, supra n. 6, at 293–300.

10 Carmen Velasco writes in her recent book, La posición del obligado en la societas consensual. Una aproximación a la actio pro socio, (Sevilla, 1986) 149Google Scholar, “La regla que se aplicaba era que todos los bienes presentes y las adquisiciones futuras licitas, cualquiera qui fuese su causa: herencia, legado, donación, debian ser aportados por los socios.” This statement is only exact for the acquisitions which have taken place after the conclusion of the soc.o.b.

11 Kaser, supra n. 6, at 302–303.

12 Talamanca, , Società in generale, diritto romano, in Enciclopedia del Diritto 42(1990) 825Google Scholar is also of this opinion. He writes “dalle fonti resulta che qualsiasi acquisto sia inter vivos sia mortis causa deve essere conferito dai partecipanti alla società”.

13 The jurists considered in this way the bringing by one partner of the actio pro socio as a case of implicit renunciation.

14 Söllner, A., Zur Vorgeschichte und Funktion der actio rei uxoriae, (Köln-Wien, 1969)Google Scholar and García Garrido, M.J., El patrimonio de la mujer casada en el derecho civil. I. La tradición romanistica, (Barcelona, 1982).Google Scholar The pages 1–132 of this book are identical with the author's book lus Uxorium. El régimen patrimonial de la mujer casada en Derecho Romano, (Roma, 1958).

15 García Garrido, El patrimonio de la mujer casada, supra n. 14, at 51.

16 García Garrido, El patrimonio di la mujer casada, ibid.

17 On this text see Ankum, , Roo, Van Gessel-de and Pool, , “Die verschiedenen Bedeutungen des Ausdrucks in bonis alicuius esse/in bonis habere im klassischen römischen Recht, I”, (1987) 104 ZSS 362–364.Google Scholar

18 Ulpian, Regulae, 6.6: quodsi in potestate patris sit, pater adiuncta filiae persona habet actionem rei uxoriae. See for exceptions to this rule in case of immoral conduct of the husband: Ulpian, Regulae, 6.12.

19 See Ulpian, Regulae, 6.8.

20 Carmen Velasco, supra n. 10, at 150, justly wrote that the husband had to transfer the dos into the common property of the societas.

21 See on this text briefly: Bernstein, infra n. 25, at 219; Chiaro, E., Le contrat de société en droit privé romain sous la République et au temps des jurisconsultes classiques, (Paris, 1928) 169Google Scholar; Watson, A., The Law of Obligations in the Later Roman Republic, (Oxford, 1965) 136–139Google Scholar; Kaser, M., Das Römische Privatrecht (hereafter RPR) vol. I, (München, 2nd ed., 1971) 333Google Scholar, note 11 and vol. II, (München, 2nd ed., 1976) 588; Carmen Velasco, supra n. 10, at 150 and M. Talamanca, supra n. 12, at 825, note 121.

22 Cf. Lenel, O., Palingenesia Iuris Civilis, (hereafter: Pal.) I, (Lipsiae, 1889)Google Scholar nr. 495, col. 1063.

23 See FIRA II, (Florentiae, 1940) 423 and Textes de droit romain, (Paris, 7th ed., 1967) 413.

24 In the part of the text Si unus … distrahatur the only words readible in the Oxford fragment are aui onera

25 Bernstein, K., “Zur Lehre vom römischen Voraus (legatum per praeceptionem)”, in (1894) 15 ZSS 28–29.Google Scholar

26 If he did not receive a dowry he only had a moral obligation to maintain his uxor.

27 See briefly on this text: Bernstein, supra n. 25, at 29; E. Chiaro, Le contrat de société en droit romain privé, supra n. 21, at 169.

28 See Lenel, Pal., I, col 215, nr. 236.

29 See Accursius, gloss “socius”: omnium bonorum.

30 Costa, E., Papiniano, Studi di storia interno del diritto romano, IV, (Bologna, 1889, R. Roma, 1964) 133.Google Scholar

31 See on this text: Cuiacius, Jacobus, Quaestiones Papiniani, in Opera omnia, IV, (Neapoli, 1722) 218–219Google Scholar; and E. Costa, supra n. 30, at 133–135; E. Chiaro, supra n. 21, at 170–171 and Steinwenter, A. in his review of Chiaro's book Le contrat de société en droit privé romain, (1930) 50 ZSS 596.Google Scholar

32 See Cuiacius, supra n. 31, at 218.

33 A. Steinwenter in his review of E. Chiaro, supra n. 31.

34 The compilers took this fragment from a passage on the actio pro socio in the ninth book of Papinian's Quaestiones; see Lenel, Pal., I, col. 831, nr. 171.

35 Another possibility is that Papinian wrote: “quae postea, cum cum marito de exigenda dote egit,…” and that a scribe left out one of these two words cum.

36 In the English translation of Peter Guarnsey in Watson, A., The Digest of Justinian, II, (Philadelphia, 1985) 512Google Scholar, we find: “… if he were to bring an action on partnership …”. This cannot be exact, the partner who had promised the dowry having died.

37 All the accusativi cum infinitivo which follow in the text depend on the word dixi.

38 See for such an agreement Diocl. and Maxim. C. 3.38.3 (290 A.D.).

39 Cuiacius, Opera omnia, IV, supra n. 31, at 218.

40 See my study “Papiniano, un jurista oscuro?” in Seminarios Complutenses de Derecho Romano (Abril-Junio 1989), I, Cuestiones de Jurisprudencia y Proceso, Derecho, Facultad de, Romano, Seminario de Derecho “Ursicino Alvarez”, (Madrid, 1990) 38.Google Scholar

41 Mommsen proposed in his editio maior of the Digest (Digesta Iustiniani Augusti, I, (Berolini, reprint, 1962) 512) to read de non exigenda dote. The Byzantine text tradition is not in favour of this proposal. In a long scholion of Bas. 12.1.79, written by Stephanos, (see Basilika, Scheltema, and Holwerda, , eds. (Groningen — ‘s Gravenhage, 1954) ser. B vol. II, p. 527)Google Scholar I read the following passage which I translate here: “my daughter claims the dowry from her husband. My son-in-law will not be forced to give it to his wife, for how could he be forced to do this, since he received nothing, but instead of paying he freed her by an acceptilatio”.

42 See Costa, Papiniano, IV, supra n. 30, at 134: “Finché la società esiste (salua societate) la dote, se già effettivamente distaccata dal patrimonio sociale, non vi ritorna che col cessare della causa dotis, e cioè colla morte della figlia che sola esclude la possibilità d'altri matrimoni, successivi a quello per cui la dote fu costituita …”.

43 See Costa, Papiniano, IV, ibid, at 134, note 4.

44 See Index Interpolationum, I, (Weimar, 1929) col. 306.

45 Leipold, H., Die Sprache des Aemilius Papinianus, (Passau, 1891) 9.Google Scholar

46 Vocabularium Iurisprudentiae Romanae, IV/1, (Berlin-New York, 1914) col. 164–266.

47 We will see that the daughter receives less in case 1. If we take the same numbers in case 1, she receives an amount of 50,000 sesterces.

48 This is also the reasoning of Cuiacius, Opera Omnia, IV, supra n. 31, at 219, who writes that the daughter could not claim the promised dowry which has not yet been paid from the common property, “quiapater earn dotem promisit tantum, non constituit, quo verbo usi erant sodi in paciscendo, ut unusquisque pro filia dotem constitueret de communi: pater, inquam, promisit tantum, non constituit, et constituere non potest derempto matrimonio”.

49 See my article “Papiniano, un jurista oscuro?”, supra n. 40, at 42–48.

50 I would like to express my profound gratitude to my colleague Mrs. Marjolijn van Gessel — de Roo (Amsterdam), who made a number of linguistic suggestions.