Augustan Marriage Laws

The Emperor Augustus sought by a comprehensive series of marriage laws (lex Julia de maritandis ordimhus (A. D. 4) and lex Papia Poppcea (A. D. 9), to promote marriages and encourage the bearing of children. Persons remaining unmarried {calibres) without sufficient reason and childless persons (orbi) were made incapable of taking property by will. These penalties were abolished by later emperors. (Sohm, § 99.)

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Patron and Freedman

Manumission, while it put an end to the relation of master and slave, established a new relation between the parties known as that of patron (patronus) and freedman (Ubertus). The former master stood to his freedman in a relation analogous to that between father and son. He had a father's right of succession and guardianship; he was entitled to be treated with respect, and to be supported by the libertus, should he need support; and also to certain services, provided the freedman had promised them after manumission. The patron was regarded in a sense a creditor of the freedman, and the rights existed against the freedman solely, the freedman had no rights against his patron. On the death of the patron his rights devolved on his children, but the children of the libertus were freeborn (ingenui) and under no obligation to the patron. The relation of patron and freedman was subject to extin- guishment in various modes.
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The Law of Guardian and Ward

The Roman law included an elaborate system of guardianship. The power of a guardian was" a form of family power, which took the place of paternal power in cases in which there was no one to exercise the latter. Guardianship was established in favor of persons who, although legally independent (sui juris), and hence not under potestas, were nevertheless under certain incapacities of fact or law which prevented them from being fully able to look after their own affairs. Such persons were (1) persons under age; (2) women; (3) spendthrifts; and (4) insane persons (lunatics). The Roman law recognized two general types of guardianship, tutela and cura. Tutela was employed for two classes of persons : ( 1 ) persons under the age of puberty ; (2) women. Cura was employed for (1) persons above the age of puberty, and under twenty-five (piibes minores) ; (2) spendthrifts; and (3) lunatics. Guardianship seems to have been originally in Rome an extension of the patria potest...
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Adstipulation

In the early Roman law a rela- tion amounting practically to that of agency was established by the' introduction into the contract of stipulation of an associate creditor called an adstipulator. The principal creditor (stipulator) would stipulate for a certain thing from the debtor, and the adstipulator would then stipulate for the same thing from the same debtor. The debtor was now liable to both creditors and might pay either, though a single performance discharged his entire obligation. The adstipulator, being formally a creditor, had the same right to demand performance as the stipulator, but he was bound to turn over to the stipulator, as the actual creditor, or to his heir, what he obtained from the debtor. The adstipulator had also the same power as the stipulator to release or discharge the debtor, but if he did so gratuitously so as to deprive the stipulator of the benefit of the contract, he was liable under the Aquilian law to an action for damages, as well...
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