POTESTAS
potestas (p<<schwa>>-tes-t<<schwa>>s or -tas), n. [Latin “power”] Roman law. Authority or power, such as the power of a magistrate to enforce the law, or the authority of an owner over a slave.
patria potestas (pay-tree-<<schwa>> orpa-tree-<<schwa>>). [Latin “paternal power”] The authority held by the male head of a family (the senior ascendant male) over his legitimate and adopted children, as well as further descendants in the male line, unless emancipated. • Initially, the father had extensive powers over the family, including the power of life and death; until Justinian’s time, the father alone in his familia had proprietary capacity but he could give a son or slave a peculium. Over time, the broad nature of the patria potestas gradually became more in the nature of a responsibility to support and maintain family members. But except in early Roman history, a wife did not fall into her husband’s power but remained in her father’s until she became sui juris by his death. — Also termed fatherly power.
“The power of the father continued ordinarily to the close of his life, and included not only his own children, but also the children of his sons, and those of his sons’ sons, if any such were born during his lifetime…. Originally and for a long time the patria potestas had a terribly despotic character. Not only was the father entitled to all the service and all the acquisitions of his child, as much as to those of a slave, but he had the same absolute control over his person. He could inflict upon him any punishment however severe…. Consider now that the patria potestas had this character and extent down to the Christian era: that, in general, every citizen of the republic who had a living father was in this condition, unable to hold property, unable to acquire any thing for himself, wholly dependent on his father in property and person … without help or vindication from the law…. The reason which caused the Romans to accept and uphold the patria potestas, to maintain it with singular tenacity against the influence of other systems with which they came in contact, must have been the profound impression of family unity, the conviction that every family was, and of right ought to be, one body, with one will and one executive.” James Hadley, Introduction to Roman Law 119–21 (1881).
“Nature and Extent of Patria Potestas. — From the most remote ages the power of a Roman father over his children, including those by adoption as well as by blood, was unlimited. A father might, without violating any law, scourge or imprison his son, or sell him for a slave, or put him to death, even after that son had risen to the highest honours in the state. This jurisdiction was not merely nominal, but, in early times, was not infrequently exercised to its full extent, and was confirmed by the laws of the XII Tables…. By degrees the right of putting a child to death (ius vitae et necis) fell into desuetude; and long before the close of the republic, the execution of a son by order of his father, although not forbidden by any positive statute, was regarded as something strange, and, unless under extraordinary circumstances, monstrous. But the right continued to exist in theory … after the establishment of the empire. [In the Christian empire, these extreme punishments were forbidden and disciplinary powers were reduced to those of reasonable chastisement. — Ed.]” William Ramsay, A Manual of Roman Antiquities 291–92 (Rodolfo Lanciani ed., 15th ed. 1894).
potestas gladii (glad-ee-I). [Latin “the power of the sword”] Roman law. See JUS GLADII.
potestas maritalis (mar-<<schwa>>-tay-lis). [Latin] Hist. The marital power. • In Roman law, this was an institution, one that was decaying by the end of the Republic.
[Blacks Law 8th]