On the Three Parts of Domestic Society

...of the conjugal state original: "iugalit[er]", volume 6. Regarding Virgins, and in praise of true and certainly highly esteemed Virginity, Saint Ambrose has much to say in volume 1.

IV. Likewise, those who assert that the repetition of marriage is in some part dishonorable are in error; this was once done by Tertullian and the Montanists The Montanists were an early Christian movement that held very strict views on morality and prohibited second marriages. See Romans 7, verse 2; 1 Corinthians 7, verse 39; and the New Constitutions original: "Novell." - the Novellae Constitutiones of Emperor Justinian 2, section "which also in the subject question." See also Henning Arnisæus, Politics, chapter 3, leaf 64, and his Treatise on the Right of Marriage, chapter 5, sections 3 and 6. See also Theodore Beza, Treatise on Polygamy, from the beginning; Speckhan, century 2, class 2, question 1; and Rittershusius, On the New Constitutions, part 4, chapter 3. Nevertheless, Saint Jerome praises widowhood original: "Viduitatem" exceedingly. See his letter to Salvianus beginning "I fear lest the duty"; likewise to Furia, "you beseech by letters"; and to Gerontia, "In the Old Way." Add also Ambrose, volume 1; and there exists in volume 4 of the works of Saint Augustine a most beautiful book, On the Good of Widowhood.

Whether widows may rightfully marry within the year of mourningoriginal: "annus luctus" - a traditional period, often ten months to a year, during which a widow was legally expected to wait before remarrying to ensure the paternity of any child born later. is treated by Arnisæus, On the Right of Marriage, 5, section 4, and Speckhan, century 2, class 2, question 10. I am more inclined to say, along with Jacobus Curtius in his Conjectures, volume 1, book 3, chapter 9: that those penalties established in Civil Law against a woman who seeks a second marriage before the time of mourning has expired—as well as those penalties devised in favor of the surviving offspring of the first spouse—still stand. "Second marriages are rarely second" original: "Nuptiæ secundæ, rarò sunt secundæ." This suggests that a second marriage rarely matches the first in quality or social standing, or that the "second" chance is rarely successful.. See Richter, Economic Axioms, 57; they are burdened with much hatred in our law. See the singular treatise by Johann Garonus on second marriages; and Rittershusius on the New Constitutions, part 4, chapters 4 and 5, as well as his Differences between Civil and Canon Law, book 2, chapters 1 and 2, through to chapter 7.

The cause for a woman’s mourning was not only the unseemly confusion of bloodlinesoriginal: "sanguinis turbatio" - a legal concern regarding paternity; if a woman remarried too quickly, it would be unclear who the father of a child was., but also this above all: the honor of the past marriage, to which the legislators wished a religious respect of mourning to be paid. Hence Seneca, On Consolation, says: "The ancestors gave a space of ten months to those mourning their husbands," etc. And Dio writes in book 58: "The Emperor, on account of public joy, relaxed the mourning and permitted widows to marry within the legitimate time, provided they were not pregnant." Justinian offers another reason in the Authentics, namely that "foul suspicion" regarding paternity might be kept away from premature marriages. This most equitable and honorable constitution has fallen out of use in our customs, surely by the too-clever suggestion of the Canonists scholars of Church law, based on that passage of Saint Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 7: "A woman released from the Law of her husband may marry whom she wishes in the Lord," etc. Thus says Nicolaus Salis in his Gleanings of the Law on the first law of the Code, Concerning Second Marriages, leaf 700. And certainly, she who hurries too much hardly seems to "marry in the Lord." Regarding second marriages, see also Jacques Auguste de Thou, book 26, leaf 788.

Furthermore, it is decreed out of a dislike for second marriages that a father cannot leave or confer under any title to his second wife more than he leaves to a son from the first marriage, according to the express text in the law Hac Edictali 6 of the Code, Concerning Second Marriages, and the New Constitutions 22, chapter 27. And if more is left...