Note 940 — Chapter VII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH ACCEPTS THE LAY CONTRACT AND CEREMONIAL

By the older Roman law the betrothal was in form a contract by stipulatio, and there was an action for damage in case of nonfulfilment: Gellius, Noctes atticae, iv, 4; Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, II, 139, 140. The later law gave no such action: Dig., xxiii, tit. i, 10: Corpus juris civ., I, 291; Codex, V, 5; though to enter into two betrothals at once was held to constitute infamia, the same as two marriages: Dig., iii, tit. ii, 1: Corpus juris civ., I, 36. Cf. Ludlow, in Dict. Christ. Antiq., I, 203; Klein, Das Eheverlöbniss, 22 ff., 125, 126; Riedler, Bedingte Eheschliessung, 11, 12; Scheurl, Entwicklung, 9-11; Loening, Geschichte des deutsch. Kirchenrechts, II, 569, 570, who shows that after the third century the betrothal became more important in Roman law; Sehling, Unterscheidung, 20, 21, notes; Rein, Das röm. Privatrecht, 188, 189; Brissonius, De ritu nuptiarum (Paris, 1654), 1 ff.; Beauchet, Étude, 11 ff.; Schubert, Die evangel. Trauung, 11, notes.