The Institutes of Justinian | Page 7

might marry even without the intervention of his father, according to the mode prescribed by our constitution.
1 It is not every woman that can be taken to wife: for mar- riage with certain classes of persons is forbidden. Thus, persons related as ascendant and descendant are incapable of lawfully intermarrying; for instance, father and daughter, grandfather and granddaughter, mother and son, grandmother and grand- son, and so on ad infinitum; and the union of such persons is called criminal and incestuous. And so absolute is the rule, that persons related as ascendant and descendant merely by adoption are so utterly prohibited from intermarriage that dissolution of the adoption does not dissolve the prohibition: so that an adoptive daughter or granddaughter cannot be taken to wife even after emancipation.
2 Collateral relations also are subject to similar prohibitions, but not so stringent. Brother and sister indeed are prohibited from intermarriage, whether they are both of the same father and mother, or have only one parent in common: but though an adoptive sister cannot, during the subsistence of the adoption, become a man's wife, yet if the adoption is dissolved by her emancipation, or if the man is emancipated, there is no imped- iment to their intermarriage. Consequently, if a man wished to adopt his son-in-law, he ought first to emancipate his daughter: and if he wished to adopt his daughter-in-law, he ought first to emancipate his son. 3 A man may not marry his brother's or his sister's daughter, or even his or her granddaughter, though she is in the fourth degree; for when we may not marry a person's daughter, we may not marry the granddaughter either. But there seems to be no obstacle to a man's marrying the daughter of a woman whom his father has adopted, for she is no relation of his by either natural or civil law. 4 The children of two brothers or sisters, or of a brother and sister, may lawfully intermarry. 5 Again, a man may not marry his father's sister, even though the tie be merely adoptive, or his mother's sister: for they are considered to stand in the relation of ascendants. For the same reason too a man may not marry his great-aunt either paternal or maternal. 6 Certain marriages again are pro- hibited on the ground of affinity, or the tie between a man or his wife and the kin of the other respectively. For instance, a man may not marry his wife's daughter or his son's wife, for both are to him in the position of daughters. By wife's daughter or son's wife we must be understood to mean persons who have been thus related to us; for if a woman is still your daughter-in-law, that is, still married to your son, you cannot marry her for another reason, namely, because she cannot be the wife of two persons at once. So too if a woman is still your stepdaughter, that is, if her mother is still married to you, you cannot marry her for the same reason, namely, because a man cannot have two wives at the same time. 7 Again, it is forbidden for a man to marry his wife's mother or his father's wife, because to him they are in the position of a mother, though in this case too our statement applies only after the relationship has finally terminated; otherwise, if a woman is still your stepmother, that is, is married to your father, the common rule of law prevents her from marrying you, because a woman cannot have two husbands at the same time: and if she is still your wife's mother, that is, if her daughter is still married to you, you cannot marry her because you cannot have two wives at the same time. 8 But a son of the husband by another wife, and a daughter of the wife by another husband, and vice versa, can lawfully intermarry, even though they have a brother or sister born of the second marriage. 9 If a woman who has been divorced from you has a daughter by a second husband, she is not your stepdaughter, but Iulian is of opinion that you ought not to marry her, on the ground that though your son's betrothed is not your daughter-in-law, nor your father's betrothed you stepmother, yet it is more decent and more in accordance with what is right to abstain from intermarrying with them. 10 It is certain that the rules relating to the prohibited degrees of marriage apply to slaves: supposing, for instance, that a father and daughter, or a brother and sister, acquired freedom by manumission. 11 There are also other persons who for various reasons are forbidden to intermarry, a list of whom we have permitted to be inserted in the