[Sidenote:  Adultery.]

On the subject of adultery Justinian enacted that if the husband was the guilty party, the dowry and marriage donations must be given his wife; but the rest of his property accrued to his relatives, both in ascending and descending lines, to the third degree; these failing, his goods were confiscated to the royal purse.[256] A woman guilty of adultery was at once sent to a monastery.  After a space of two years her husband could take her back again, if he so wished, without prejudice.  If he did not so desire, or if he died, the woman was shorn and forced to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery; two thirds of her property were given to her relatives in descending line, the other third to the monastery; if there were no descendants, ascendants got one third and the monastery two thirds; relatives failing, the monastery took all; and in all cases goods inserted in the dowry contract were to be kept for the husband.[257]

[Sidenote:  Second marriages.] [Sidenote:  Strict laws of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius.]

The legislation of the earlier Christian emperors on second marriages reflects the various feelings of the Church Fathers on the subject.  Under the old law, people could marry as often as they wished without any penalties.[258] But we have seen that among some of the Churchmen second marriages were held in peculiar abhorrence, and third nuptials were regarded as a hideous sin; while the orthodox clergy, like St. Augustine and St. Jerome, permitted second and third marriages, but damned them with faint praise and urged Christians to be content with one venture.  Public opinion, custom, and the influence of the old Roman law were too powerful to allow Christian monarchs to become fanatical on the subject[259]; but certain stricter regulations were introduced by the pious Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, in the years 380, 381, and 382.[260] As under the old laws any widow who married again before the legal time of mourning—­a year—­had expired, became infamous and lost both cast and all claims to the goods of her deceased husband.  She was furthermore not permitted to give a second husband more than one third of her property nor leave him more than one third by will; and she could receive no intestate succession beyond the third degree.  A woman who proceeded to a second marriage after the legal period of mourning, must make over at once to the children of the first marriage all the property which her former husband had given or left to her.  As to her own personal property, she was allowed to possess it and enjoy the income while she lived, but not to alienate it or leave it by will to any one except the children of the first marriage.  As I have before remarked, Roman law constantly had the interest of the children at heart.[261] If there was no issue of the first marriage, then the woman had free control.  A mother acquired full right—­as the old Senatus consultum Tertullianum had decreed—­to the property of a son or daughter who died childless[262]; but if she married a second time, and her son or daughter died without leaving children or grandchildren, she was expelled from all succession and distant relatives acquired the property.[263]