Una congettura sull’arcaico filiam abducere

Abstract

The aim of this study is to shed light on an ancient custom of the pater familias, which the texts refer to as filiam abducere, which legitimated the pater familias to take back the married daughter, in order to clarify the origins, up to this moment ignored, in the Ancient Roman Civil Law. Such filiam abducere originated from an act through which the father gave away the daughter in marriage, ‘mandare fidei viro’, based upon fides. The ruptio fidei legitimated him to filiam abducere. With the intervention of friends as witnesses, the father took back the filia from the abode (the marital domus) where she had been locata and from the man to whom she had been mandata, so carrying out a ritual act of self protection, which probably resulted in the use of a manum inicere without trial.