Note 16 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW
Reading edition
Freedom of divorce in matrimonium sine manu reacted upon the manus marriages to the extent that the causes of dissolution were increased in number.
"The famous divorce of Sp. Carvilius Ruga [ca. 520 A. U. C.] is not only the first Roman divorce in general, but also the first dissolution of a manus marriage in which no fault but merely a vitium corporis of the woman was assigned" as ground of action.—Geffcken, op. cit., 12. But it is very doubtful whether this is really the first divorce among the Romans: Wächter, op. cit., 82 ff.; Combier, Du divorce, 42 ff. The time is uncertain. According to Dionysius, the divorce occurred in 520 A. U. C.; while Aulus Gellius, Noctes atticae, IV, 3, § 2, xvii, 21, gives confusingly 519 and 523 as the date. Compare Wächter, op. cit., 78 ff.; Savigny, "Ueber die erste Ehescheidung in Rom," Abhand. d. k. Akad. d. Wis. in Berlin, 1814-16 (Berlin, 1818); Rein, Privatrecht, 450 ff.; Karlowa, Rechtsgeschichte, 188; Glasson, Le mariage civil et le divorce, 175; Woolsey, Divorce, 39; Thwing, The Family, 36; Popp, Ehescheidung, 22; Langeron, Du divorce, 17.