19.26. 26. The same Subject continued.
The law of Theodosius and
Valentinian
[33]
drew the causes of repudiation from the ancient manners
and customs of the Romans.
[34]
It placed in the number of these causes
the behaviour of the husband who beat his wife
[35]
in a manner that
disgraced the character of a free-born woman. This cause was omitted in
the following laws:
[36]
for their manners, in this respect, had
undergone a change, the eastern customs having banished those of Europe.
The first eunuch of the empress, wife to Justinian II, threatened, says
the historian, to chastise her in the same manner as children are
punished at school. Nothing but established manners, or those which they
were seeking to establish, could raise even an idea of this kind.
We have seen how the laws follow the manners of a people; let us now
observe how the manners follow the laws.
Footnotes
[33]
Leg. 8, Cod., De Repud.
[34]
And the law of the Twelve Tables. See Cicero, "Philippic," ii. 69.
[35]
"Si verberibus quæ ingenuis aliena sunt, afficientem probaverit."
[36]
In Nov. 117, cap. xiv.
