“In a society of persons in which the authority to maintain the law was in the hands of its members, and of which the membership rested on the ability to bear arms and defend oneself (‘weer’), those who, for want of strength or some other reason, were unable to do so, could not play an active part, and were necessarily placed under the authority of those whose protection they needed. Originally, mundium was not limited to family law. Gradually it lost its wider meaning, and in its restricted sense it received different applications, as family relations became classified into separate groups, and the conception of mundium appeared under different forms, with special rules and special names — e.g., marital power, parental power, guardianship, and curatorship.” Alexander Wood Renton & George Grenville Phillimore, The Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce 10 (1910).
mundium
mundium (m[schwa]n-dee-[schwa]m). [Law Latin] The legal protection and representation granted to a person who is socially and physically weak.
