“If either parent re-married, the interests of the children of the first marriage were protected (in the later Roman Empire) by a number of legal rules the effect of which was to confer certain benefits on the children and to impose certain disabilities — the so-called poenae secundarum nuptiarum — on the parens binubus. The most important of these rules was that which declared that all the property which the parens binubus had acquired gratuitously from his or her deceased spouse, whether by way of gift, dos, donatio propter nuptias, or testamentary disposition — the so-called lucra nuptialia — should become ipso jure the property of the children of the first marriage at the moment of the conclusion of the second marriage, and that only a usufruct should be reserved for the parens binubus.” Rudolph Sohm, The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law 477 (James Crawford Ledlie trans., 3d ed. 1907).
poenae secundarum nuptiarum
poenae secundarum nuptiarum (pee-nee sek-[schwa]n-dair-[schwa]m n[schwa]p-shee-air-[schwa]m). [Latin “penalties of second marriages”] Roman law. Disabilities that, for the protection of children of a first marriage, are imposed on a parent who remarries.
