[IAUOLENUS libro tertio decimo epistularum. ] §24.1.50.prSi, cum mulier uiginti seruum emisset, in eam emptionem uir quinque uenditori dedit, diuortio facto omnimodo uir eam summam exiget neque ad rem pertinet, an is seruus deterior factus sit: nam et si mortuus esset, quinque exactio ei competeret.
[JAVOLENUS, in the thirteenth book of Letters.] If, when a woman had bought a slave for twenty, her husband paid five to the seller toward that purchase, upon divorce the husband shall by all means recover that sum, and it is of no consequence whether that slave has deteriorated; for even if he had died, the right to demand the five would belong to him.
quaeritur enim, an mulier ex uiri patrimonio locupletior sit eo tempore, quo de dote agebatur: facta autem intellegitur, quae aere alieno suo interuentu uiri liberata est, quod potuisset adhuc debere, si uir pecuniam non soluisset: neque enim interest, ex qua causa mulier pecuniam debuit, utrum creditam an eam quam ex emptione praestare debeat.
For the question is whether the woman is enriched from her husband's estate at the time when the action for the dowry was brought; and she is understood to have been made [so enriched] who, by the intervention of her husband, was released from her own debt, which she might still have owed if her husband had not paid the money; for it makes no difference for what reason the woman owed the money, whether it was a loan or what she was obliged to pay from a purchase.
§24.1.50.1Quod si mulier non emerat seruum, sed ut emeret, a uiro pecuniam accepit, tum uel mortuo uel deteriore facto seruo damnum ad uirum pertinebit: quia quod aliter emptura non fuit, nisi pecuniam a uiro accepisset, hoc consumptum ei perit qui donauit, si modo in rerum natura esse desiit: nec uidetur mulier locupletior esse, quae neque a creditore suo liberata est neque id possidet quod ex pecunia uiri emerat.
But if the woman had not bought the slave, but had received money from her husband in order to buy him, then, whether the slave has died or deteriorated, the loss will belong to the husband; because that which she would not otherwise have bought unless she had received the money from her husband, being consumed, perishes to him who donated it, provided that it has ceased to exist in the nature of things; nor is the woman deemed to be enriched, who was neither released from her creditor nor possesses that which she had bought with her husband's money.