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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §23.4.32.pr-23.4.32.1

Option on Sold Dotal Land and Conditional Dowry Payment

Passage 3491 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

If a dotal land is sold at a higher price with the wife's consent after a restoration agreement and a divorce occurs, the husband has the choice to return either the land or the proceeds. Furthermore, a dowry promised under the condition that the father would not pay against his will cannot be demanded.

[IAUOLENUS libro sexto ex posterioribus Labeonis. ] §23.4.32.prUxor uiro fundum aestimatum centum in dotem dederat, deinde cum uiro pactum conuentum fecerat, ut diuortio facto eodem pretio uxori uir fundum restitueret: postea uolente uxore uir eum fundum ducentorum uendiderat, et diuortium erat factum.
[JAVOLENUS, from the sixth book of Epitomes of Labeo's Posterity.] A wife had given her husband a tract of land valued at one hundred as dowry, and had then made an agreement with her husband that, if a divorce occurred, the husband should restore the land to the wife at the same valuation. Afterwards, with the consent of the wife, the husband had sold the land for two hundred, and a divorce occurred.
Labeo putat uiro potestatem fieri debere, utrum uelit ducenta uel fundum reddere, neque ei pactum conuentum remitti oportere.
Labeo thinks that the husband should be given the choice of whether he wishes to return two hundred or the land, and that the agreement should not be released to him.
idcirco puto hoc Labeonem respondisse, quoniam uoluntate mulieris fundus ueniit: alioquin omnimodo fundus erat restituendus.
Therefore, I think Labeo gave this opinion because the land was sold with the consent of the woman; otherwise, the land would have had to be restored in any case.
§23.4.32.1Si pater filiae nomine certam pecuniam in dotem promiserat et pactus est, ne inuitus eam solueret: nihil ab eo exigendum puto, quia id, quod pacto conuento ne inuitus exigeretur conuenerit, in dotis causam esse non uideretur.
If a father had promised a certain sum of money as dowry on behalf of his daughter and agreed that he should not pay it against his will, I think nothing should be demanded from him, because that which was agreed by the agreement, namely, that it should not be demanded against his will, would not seem to be within the cause of a dowry.

Notes

  1. 23.4.32.prueniit — The third-person singular perfect of the verb ueneo (to be sold). Although similar in spelling to uenit (from uenio, to come), it is the perfect of ueneo, which has a passive meaning, and is interpreted as 'was sold.'
  2. 23.4.32.prpactum conuentum remitti — Meaning 'the agreement should be released/canceled.' Here, it expresses that due to the change in circumstances (the sale of the land), the agreement previously made (to restore the land at the same valuation upon divorce) should not entirely lose its effect against the husband.
  3. 23.4.32.1in dotis causam — 'Within the legal cause (essence or validity) of a dowry.' What a father promised under the condition that 'he should not pay against his will' cannot be legally enforced, and thus is judged not to have a valid cause (causa) as a dowry.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §23.4.32.pr-23.4.32.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:23.4.32.pr-23.4.32.1

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