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The Wicked Guardian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

H. F. Jolowicz
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Extract

Counsel often open their address with the words ‘May it please your Lordship’, though they doubt whether their client's merit justifies such conventional optimism. In submitting this slight tribute of admiration and gratitude to Norman Baynes, I have similar feelings, but I hope that the subject at least will find favour with one who, as lawyers are proud to remember, is one of themselves as well as a famous historian.

It may not be actually stated that the wicked uncle of the fairy tale was also a guardian, but probably he was; for uncles are the commonest guardians in all ages, and their perfidy is a typical example of human wickedness. Among those who suspected them most were, according to our tradition, the ancient lawgivers of Greece; for guardianship and the connected subject of second marriages occupy quite a noticeable place in the scanty records of both Solon and Charondas. Solon, according to Diogenes Laertius, laid down that a guardian must not marry the mother of his ward, and that the person who would inherit from the ward must not be his guardian.

Information

Type
Papers Presented to N. H. Baynes
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1-2 , November 1947, pp. 82 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © H. F. Jolowicz 1947. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 I, 56: τὸν ἐπίτροπον τῇ ὀρφανῶν μητρὶ μὴ συνοικεῖν, μηδ᾿ ἐπιτροπεύειν εἰς ὅν ἡ οὐσία ἔρχεται τῶν ὀρφανῶν τελευτησάντων.

2 XII, 15: τῶν μὲν ὀρφανικῶν χρημάτων ἐπιτροπεύειν τοὺς ἀγχιστεῖς τοὺς ἀπὸ πατρός, τρέφεσθαι δὲ τοὺς ὀρφανοὺς παρὰ τοῖς συγγενέσι τοῖς ἀπὸ μητρός.

3 XII, 12.

4 ‘Literary Tradition and Early Greek Codemakers,’ Cambridge Historical Journal 11, 1927, 95 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 l.c. p. 107.

6 ‘Die Gesetze des Zaleukos u. Charondas,’ Klio XXII, 1929, 105 ffGoogle Scholar. and 432 ff., at p. 442.

7 e.g. the degree of capacity remaining to a minor above the age of puberty: see Buckland, Textbook, p. 172. In fact, no doubt, most minors, having no property, had no curators, and spent their little earnings as they liked, with no questions asked.

8 Holdsworth, , History of English Law III, 511Google Scholar.

9 Lipsius, Attisches Recht, 524 f.

10 The order given by Schulthess, Vormundschaft nach attischem Recht (1886), 74, is: elder brother, paternal uncle, maternal uncle, ἀνεΨιοί. Beauchet, , Hist. du droit privé de la Rép. athénienne II, 175Google Scholar, differs slightly. The more cautious Lipsius refrains from all detail.

11 Wyse, Speeches of Isaeus, 176.

12 Isaeus I, 12.

13 Beauchet II, 170, and also, with some hesitation, Schulthess, 65. Lipsius, 525, n. 22, and Wyse, 191, leave the matter open.

14 There is no proof that guardians had to register with the archon: see Lipsius, 526, n. 24; Wyse, 524.

15 Law of Greco-Roman Egypt, 120. Cf. for guardianship of women, Wolff, H. J., in Aegyptus XVII, 1937, 466Google Scholar. But such statements as that in P Oxy 487, 5, and P Mich Inv 6659, 29 (ed. Wolff, l.c.), which give as a reason for a suggested appointment the absence of relatives, prove little for any definite order, and so does P Lond 903, 5–8: πωλῶ Ἑρμαίῳ ἀφήλικι μετὰ κυρίου τοῦ συγγενοῦς σαραπίωνος, which, besides being vague, looks as if its form had been mistakenly copied from women's contracts. In BGU 1070 ( = Chrest. M. 323), a mother asks for the appointment of a paternal uncle, who, if anyone, would presumably be legitimus; in P Teb 326 ( = Chrest. M. 325), she asks for her own brother. In SB 7568 (JEA XIX, 1933, 138–142), the mother states that she was appointed by the Exegete (although the paternal uncles are still alive), in P Oxy 898 she is guardian herself, though whether by will, kinship, or appointment is not known. P Harris 68 (A.D. 226) is an application by a maternal uncle for his own appointment, there being no nearer relative, after the mother's death. The editor takes it that she had been guardian hitherto, but it seems quite as likely that no special arrangements had been made until her death.

16 P Oxy 888 = Chrest. M. 329.

17 SB 4638, of Philometor's reign.

18 PSI 1102.

19 BGU VIII, 1849. She had already failed in an application to a priestly court. For poverty as an excuse for appointing no guardian, cf. D. 38, 17, 2, 26.

20 P Oxy 1269, early second century A.D.

21 P Oxy 1638.

22 Strassb., P, Archiv.f. Papyrusforschung IV (1908), 130–144Google Scholar.

23 Op. cit. 125, n. 49.

24 P Lond 1164 (g) of the same date.

25 P Lond 1164 (i).

26 Taubenschlag, op. cit. 111, 116.

27 1. 252, ὀφεῖλαι ἀναθρέψαι τὸν ἴδιον αὐτοῦ ἀδελφὸν καὶ ἀνάξαι τοῦτου τῇ δεούση ἡλικίᾳ.

28 And a very considerable number mentioned. See e.g. Blass, , Attische Beredsamkeit 1, 620Google Scholar.

29 Isaeus V, 10.

30 Lysias XXXII, 16.

31 The relevant statute mentioned father, brother, and uncle also, Aesch. c. Timarch. 13.

32 Isaeus V, 11; Wyse, p. 405, 419.

33 Taubenschlag, St. Riccobono 1, 516, cites BGU 98, 136 ( = Chrest. M 86); P Oxy 898; and refers to P Cair Zen 111, 59440. Perhaps we can add P Oxy 1420, 5, where Χορήϒια seem to have formed one of the issues.

34 P Oxy 2133: taken as a case of protutela by Meyer, ZS 50, 516, and Taubenschlag, Law of Greco-Roman Egypt, 127.

35 PSI 281, 33.

36 Lipsius, 527.

37 P Oxy 496, 12 (Chrest. M. 287); 497, 12 (where there is, however, no mention of the nearest relative).

38 Ibid.

39 BGU 1, 86, 20.

40 Archiv f. Papyrusforschung IV (1908), 74, n. 5.

41 Arist, . Ath. Pol. 56, 7Google Scholar. Lipsius, 527.

42 Schulthess, op. cit., 92; Beauchet, op. cit., 11, 205.

43 Isaeus VII, 7; IX, 27.

44 P Oxy 496.

45 Cf. P Oxy 265, 28, where the mother herself is to choose the person to act with her, and P Oxy 907 ( = Chrest. M. 317), where the testator appoints a male guardian, but obviously wishes his wife to have complete control). In P Fuad 33 (first century, A.D.), in a ὁμολοϒία to which her husband gives his concurrence, the mother appoints him guardian.

46 Laws XI, 924 b.

47 As is suggested by Schulthess, op. cit. 86, and W. G. Becker, Platons Gesetze u. das griechische Familienrecht, 233.

48 Col. VIII, 40–5.

49 ἐπιβάλλον, i.e., agnatic relative. Kohler and Ziebarth, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, 65. For the general use of the word Gernet, v., Rev. des études grecques, XXXIV (1921), 368Google Scholar.

50 Col. XII, 26–35.

51 Kohler and Ziebarth, 58, n. 1, presume that πάτροα is a slip, due to the constantly changing legislation.

52 Hor. Sat. II, 5, 47Google Scholar; Persius 11, 12, quoted by Blackstone in this connection, Comm. 1, 461.

53 Gai. II, 181; D. 29, 3, 8.

54 Ad Fam. XIII, 61.

55 Pro Clu. 41.

56 Galba, 9.

57 D. 27, 2, 1, pr.

58 Textbook, 142.

59 Cf. Wolff, H. J., St. Riccobono III, 471Google Scholar, n. 124.

60 Even Paulus could still say ‘Cum tutor non rebus dumtaxa t sed moribus proponatur’; D. 26, 7. 12, 3).

61 In spite of D. 26, 1, 6, 2. See Mitteis, Röm. Privatrecht. 41, n. 4.

62 Plutarch, Ti. Gracchus, 3; Hor. Ep. I, I, 22Google Scholar, ‘custodia matrum’. This might be so even if the children were in their grandfather's potestas; Apuleius, Apol. 68.

63 D. 33, 1, 7.

64 Cf. P Oxy 907, and note 45 above. Kübler, , ZS 31, 185Google Scholar.

65 D. 25, 4, 1, 10.

66 D. 27, 2, 1, 1.

67 D. 27, 2, 2, 3; 33, 1, 7.

68 Greeks might be content with far more fluid law. For the uncertainty about the enforceability of many testamentary dispositions in the papyri, see e.g. Kübler, s.v. testamentum in P-W, 980.

69 On this subject, see Mitteis, op. cit. 196 ff.

70 De Laud. c. 44.

71 1 Inst. 88.

72 Comm. I, 461.

73 Quoted by Viollet, Hist. du droit civil français (1893). 539.

74 Pollock, and Maitland, , Hist. of English Law I, 307Google Scholar.

75 VII, c. 11.

76 f. 87 b.

77 Pollock and Maitland, l.c. quoting the Très ancien coutumier. According to the English rule, if lands held in socage descend from both sides of the family, the law gives up any attempt at protection, and custody of the infant's person goes to the ‘first occupant’: Blackstone I, 461.

78 C. 5, 37, 22 = C Th 3, 30, 3.

79 Section 2 c.

80 Section 5.

81 Nov. 72, pr.

82 c. 3, eod.

83 c. 6, eod. Nov. 94, c. 1, makes some reparation to mothers for the unkind things Constantine had said about them. Nov. 155, on the other hand, deals with an actual complaint against a mother, but the matter is pecuniary.

84 D. 27, 2, 1, 1. The interpolations here and in the allied texts are discussed by Solazzi, Note di diritto romano (1937), 11. Cf. also the interpolated ‘atrociora in tutela admissa’ of D. 26, 10, 1, 8, and the introductory 1, pr. eod.: ‘cottidie enim suspecti tutores postulantur.’

85 Beseler, , Beiträge III, 102Google Scholar.

86 Nov. 22, c. 38.

87 C. 5, 58, 3, pr.

88 Tac. Dial. 37.

89 Decl. Min. 346.

90 Decl. Min. 355.

91 Rhetor, Seneca, Controversiae IV, 5Google Scholar; VII, 20; IX, 28. Quint. Decl. Mai. I. Min. 246, 327, 335, 338, 350, 373, 381. In 327 the step-mother who drank a potion to prevent her having children ‘voluit effugere fabulas novercarum’. An unnatural mother who is pupillary substitute to her son is the subject of 388.

92 D. 5, 2, 4: ‘novercalibus delenimentis instigationibusve corrupti.’