PATRIA POTESTAS (Lat., paternal power). The power of the father over his chil dren iu early Roman law was similar to that which existed among other Aryan peoples at the same stage of social development. (See PARENT AND Cutto.) What was peculiar in later Roman law was the extent to which this early power was maintained even at an advanced stage of civiliza tion, and the duration of the power, in the case of sons, until the father's death. Daughters (at least in the earlier law) passed out of the pa ternal power upon marriage. but sons remained subject even after their marriage. The son had no potestas over his children until his father's death. Patric potestas was thus the authority not merely of the father over children, but of the ancestor over all descendants in the male line (son's children, son's son's children, etc.), In early Roman law the father had an un limited right to expose all infant daughters ex cept the tirst-horn. Sons and first-born daugh ters might also be exposed if they were deformed and the deformity were attested by five of the nearest neighbds. The father had also, as do mestic magistrate, the right to punish his chil dren, even with death, after a trial at which the kinsmen were present. These paternal rights ex isted throughout the Republican period,uncheeked except by the arbitrary power of the censors and of the popular assembly to punish abuses of pa ternal power. In the Imperial period, however. ex posure of children was forbidden and the right of punishment was reduced within disciplinary limits.
The father had also the right to sell the child. Sale into slavery was unusual; in the later Empire it was permitted only in the ease of new-horn children and only when the father was in extreme poverty.,and even then the father re tained the right of ransom. To pledge theperson of a child for the father's debt was originally accomplished by sale with the right of ransom) was not uncommon, nor was this prac tice forbidden until the Imperial period. It was also not unusual for a father to sell his son's services for a number of years. A so-called royal law ( i.e. a rule of the old religious law; see Curt, LAW) forbade the sale of a married son ; and another royal law declared that a son sold three times should be free from. the father— a rule of which the jurists took advantage in de vising a form of emancipation (q.v.). Sales of children for the purposes of emancipation or of adoption into a new family, and sales of daugh ters as a method of giving them in marriage, were of course purely formal.
sons and daughters under patria potcstas had no property of their own: whatever they acquired was acquired for the head of the house. In the Imperial period. however, the son and also the daughter obtained property rights: (11 Whatever the son acquired in the military or civil ser vice of the Empire (pectilium eastrense, quasi castrense) was his own; (2) whatever a son or (laughter acquired from the mother or from maternal relations (bona materna, materni gen cris), and, finally, whatever a son or a daughter acquired from anyone except the father (bona adrenticial, passed indeed into the control and usufruct of the father, hut the equitable interest was in the child. Accordingly the father was for
bind. n to sell land thus acquired. and his estate ass accountable to the children for all goods and money thus acquired.
11 ith the development of the legal recognition of the child's right to life came the recognition of his right to support. With the development of indinndent property rights of the child Caine the duty to support au indigent parent.
Even at early Roman law there was one field in which suns were independent. viz., that of public law. The son under paternal authority hail politica) rights and was eligible to office; and, if clothed with official power, he could con trol the actions of the father.
Paternal authority existed over children born to the father in lawful marriage, In the later Empire children born of a concubine (Mil no could be legitimized by the subsequent marriage of their parents or by rescript of the Emperor. Children thus legitimized and chil dren brought into the family by adoption (arro gob) adoptio plena see were ject to patria potestns.
Patria was extinguished not only by the death of the father. but IT his loss of lib erty or of citizenship (capitia deminatio maxima, media). Ilk capture and enslavement by foreign enemies, however, only suspended his paternal au thority, and if lie escaped or was ransomed it revived. The practical meaning of the rule was that emolemnation to any penalty which carried with it loss of freedom or of citizenship destroyed 'Harju pote.s.las. Forfeiture of paternal authority was also imposed. by Imperial legislation, on the father who exposed his child or prostituted his daughter. The marriage of a daughter extin guished her father's authority as long as mar riage (q.v.) carried the woman into the power (man us) of her husband; but when the free mar riage was developed, the married woman re mained under her father's' authority. Even in such a marriage, however. her children were un der the paternal authority of her husband or of her father. Paternal authority was extimmished, in the older Roman law, when a son became a flamen of Jupiter or a daughter be came a vestal virgin. In the law of Justinian the same result attached to the elevation of the son to the episcopate or his appointment to any important secular (alive. Finally, paternal au thority was extinguished when the son or daugh ter was voluntarily emancipated or transferred to an adopted father. The emancipation of chil dren originally deprived them of all right of in heriting property in their original family ex cept by testament; but this result was obviated, as regarded the father's estate, by the pretorian *edict, and, as regarded the estates of brothers, sisters. and paternal relatives, by Imperial legis lation. Consult the authorities referred to under CIVIL LAW.