Talk:Contubernium

NPOV

Grufo can you explain removal of content here? WP:NPOV requires that we explain "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". This is a reliable source and so we can include this view, perhaps with attribution.

Philip Lyndon Reynolds. Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods. Brill publishers. p. 20. The customary relationship between a free man and a bondswoman was technically also contubernium, according to the jurists, although this form of alliance was also called concubinage (concubinatus).

VR _talk 14:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

A source about “early Medieval Periods” is not “a significant view” compared to sources that focus on Roman law (Stocquart 1907) or specifically on the contubernium (Treggiari 1981) – the latter even shows the Latin usage of the words in Latin sources. --Grufo (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

So are you then of the view that sources that do not specialize on a topic of an article are not to be used on it? Do you apply this view consistently on wikipedia?VR _talk 14:27, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Of course they can be used. But when they conflict with specialized articles widely recognized as such – for example Treggiari is cited everywhere a contubernium is mentioned, since it is one of the few articles specifically on the topic – the most reliable source must be preferred. --Grufo (talk) 14:45, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with giving a preference to Treggiari, I'm fine with assuming their views should be given higher WP:weight, but dissenting views deserve a mention too.VR _talk 14:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

“Dissenting” and “being imprecise” are quite different things. The first one might deserve a mention, the second one no. --Grufo (talk) 14:53, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

They are not being imprecise themselves. They are arguing that certain relationships that were technically contubernium under Roman law were sometimes also called concubinage. In other words, they are noting the imprecision already used in sources.VR _talk 15:00, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

“Arguing” requires “giving arguments”. There is a mainstream view according to which a “concubinatus” could involve only free Roman citizens, and the term was not used even to describe a relationship between a free Roman and a free Gaul (Stocquart 1907, p 316). Now, either we consider Reynolds as a source that promotes using “concubinatus” for “contubernium” – but then we look at their arguments – or, as you seem to say in your last comment, we consider them as a source that discourages against the “imprecision” of calling a contubernium “concubinatus” – and then we have a reason more for not using “concubinatus” in this page. --Grufo (talk) 15:16, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying we replace occurrences of contubernium with concubinatus, but rather we make note that literature sometimes refers to this relationship as concubinatus. Which it does.VR _talk 01:30, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Specialized sources on the topic do not call "contubernium" a concubinatus. --Grufo (talk) 15:39, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Also there's this source that describes the relationship between a freewoman and a slave as concubinage.VR _talk 14:32, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

We are within Roman law here, a very well studied field. “Opinions” from who is not specialized in Roman law about how things are called in Latin do not constitute reliable sources (even when the same sources can be perfectly reliable in other contexts). In ancient Rome “concubinatus” was an institution regulated by the law, and the latter established that both parties needed to be free and Roman citizens (Stocquart 1907, p 316). --Grufo (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

The book is published by University of Georgia Press and the book and its authors seem reliable enough. Again, I'm not suggesting we consider this to be the only opinion or even the dominant opinion, but per WP:NPOV we can't exclude significant viewpoints published in WP:RS even if you feel those viewpoints are incorrect.VR _talk 01:30, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

An imprecision, or non-specialized usage, is not a viewpoint. Specialized sources ask for a distinction (emphasis mine):

From matrimontum, we should distinguish;

First, concubinatus, a union authorized under Augustus from the leges Julia et Papia, between persons of unequal condition, provided the man had no uxor. The concubina was neither uxor nor pellex, but uxoris loco. The children, issue of such a union, are neither legitimi nor spurii, but naturales. (Cod. 5, 27.)

Second, contubernium is the perfectly regular and valid relation between a free man and a slave, or between two slaves. Through the civil law, it produced all the effects arising from the natural law.

— 

--Grufo (talk) 15:33, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Having spent some time researching this topic and expanding the article, I believe Grufo to be correct on virtually every point here. Concubinage was an alternative to marriage primarily for a man of senatorial rank who was forbidden to marry a woman who had ever been a slave according to Roman law; this is why Vespasian could not marry Caenis. Concubinage was supposed to be monogamous, as Romans thought of it legalistically. Contubernium was a de facto marriage between people who could not legally marry because their citizen status did not permit conubium; their intention to marry if both partners obtained freedom was assumed. The attention paid by jurists seems directed mainly at clarifying property rights and the legal status of children produced by these unions. I have a few citations to plug in but hope not to spend significantly more time on this article. Oddly, I've been unable to find an inscription on Commons for the free(d) woman / male slave scenario. The German book cited for the Septicius inscription would be a good source for someone who can read German better than I can. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:15, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Bibliography

• Stocquart, Emile (March 1907). Sherman, Charles Phineas (ed.). "Marriage in Roman law". Yale Law Journal. 16 (5). Translated by Bierkan, Andrew T.: 303–327. doi:10.2307/785389. Retrieved 2020-09-15.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

References