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A marriage between a patrician and a plebeian was the only way to legally integrate the two classes. However, when the Twelve Tables were written down, the marriage between the two classes was prohibited. [ 14 ]
Plebeians were barred from marrying patricians in 450 BC but this law was annulled five years later in 445 BC by a tribune of the plebs. [2] [page needed] In 444 BC, the office of military tribune with consular powers was created. The plebeians who filled this office were then entitled to join the senate after their one-year term was completed.
It was a modification to the Valerian law in 449 BC which first allowed acts of the Plebeian Council to have the full force of law over both plebeians and patricians, but eventually the final law in the series was passed (the "Shortening Law"), which removed the last check that the patricians in the Senate had over this power.
It is likely that patricians, over the course of the first half of the fifth century, were able to close off high political office from plebeians and exclude plebeians from permanent social integration through marriage. [9] Plebeians were enrolled into the curiae and the tribes; they also served in the army and also in army officer roles as ...
The most ancient form of marriage, traditionally reserved to the Patrician social class, claimed the husband's right to control his wife and her property. In later developments, the bride retained control over her dowry; the resources of both parties formed a heritable estate.
Five years earlier, as part of the process of establishing the Twelve Tables of Roman law, the second decemvirate had placed severe restrictions on the plebeian order, including a prohibition on the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians. [5] [6] Gaius Canuleius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, proposed a rogatio repealing this law.
The prohibition on intermarriage between patricians and plebeians was thus repealed. [15] However, the proposal that would permit plebeians to stand for the consulship was not brought to a vote, threatening a radical escalation of the conflict between the plebeian assembly and the patrician senate.
Why was a law banning marriage between patricians and plebeians drawn up by a body composed by both patricians and plebeians (the majority of the members of the second decemvirate being plebeians)? [30] In 2005, historian Gary Forsythe dismissed the second decemvirate as unhistorical. He presents a number of arguments for his view.