{{Short description|Patrician marriage in ancient Rome}} [[File:Dextrorum_iunctio_edited.JPG | thumb | right | alt=Photograph of a statue depicting two people | Ancient Roman marriage (Baths of Diocletian Museum, Rome)]] In [[ancient Rome]], '''{{Lang|la|confarreatio}}''' was a traditional [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] form of [[Roman marriage|marriage]].<ref name="Hersch2010">{{cite book|author=Karen K. Hersch|title=The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZEJQPjc4sIC&pg=PA26|date=24 May 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-12427-0|pages=26–}}</ref> The ceremony involved the bride and bridegroom sharing a cake of [[emmer]], in [[Latin]] ''far'' or ''panis farreus'',<ref name="Grubbs2002">{{cite book|author=Judith Evans Grubbs|title=Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4X8HXDwMHawC&pg=PA22|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-15240-2|pages=22}}</ref><ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Confarreatio|volume=7|page=898}}</ref> hence the rite's name. ''Far'' is often translated as "[[spelt]]", which is inaccurate as the grain used was ''Triticum dicoccum'' (emmer), not ''Triticum spelta''.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Thurmond|title=A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome: For Her Bounty No Winter|year=2006|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k_1TEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|publisher=Koninklijke Brill NV|isbn=978-90-04-15236-6|page=18}}</ref> The ''[[Flamen Dialis]]'' and [[pontifex maximus]] presided over the [[Weddings in ancient Rome|wedding]], and ten witnesses had to be present.<ref name=EB1911/> The woman passed directly from the hand ''(manus)'' of her father or head of household (the ''[[pater familias]]'') to that of her new husband.<ref name="Lind2008">{{cite book|author=Goran Lind|title=Common Law Marriage : A Legal Institution for Cohabitation: A Legal Institution for Cohabitation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e-kJxOISFSMC&pg=PA38|date=23 July 2008|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=978-0-19-971053-9|pages=38–}}</ref>
Having parents who were married by {{Lang|la|confarreatio}} was a prerequisite for becoming a [[Vestal Virgin|Vestal]] or the ''[[Flamen Dialis]]''.<ref name=EB1911/> {{Lang|la|Confarreatio}} seems to have been limited to those whose parents were also married by {{Lang|la|confarreatio}}, but later, perhaps with the rise of [[nobiles|plebeian ''nobiles'']], this requirement must have been relaxed.<ref name="Raaflaub2008">{{cite book|author=Kurt A. Raaflaub|title=Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x0W5jLevmUoC&pg=PA224|date=15 April 2008|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-4889-4|pages=224–}}</ref> [[Scipio Africanus]] presumably married his wife [[Aemilia Tertia]] by {{Lang|la|confarreatio}}, because their elder son was ''Flamen Dialis''; yet Scipio's mother [[Pomponia]] was a plebeian.
Divorce for {{Lang|la|confarreatio}} marriages, ''[[diffarreatio]]'',<ref name=EB1911/> was a difficult process and therefore rare. Not much is known about how ''diffarreatio'' was carried out except that there was a special type of sacrifice that caused the dissolution of the relationship between the man and woman. She would then pass back into the ''manus'' of her ''paterfamilias''.
Originally, the {{Lang|la|confarreatio}} was indissoluble, and this remained true of the marriage of the ''Flamen Dialis''. The other two [[Flamen#Flamines maiores|major ''flamines'']], the ''[[Flamen Martialis]]'' and the ''[[Flamen Quirinalis]]'', were also required to marry by {{Lang|la|confarreatio}}.<ref name="Watson1992">{{cite book|author=Alan Watson|title=The State, Law, and Religion: Pagan Rome|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hiBWExO2QXsC&pg=PA52|year=1992|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-1387-0|pages=52–}}</ref> The three major flamines were also required to marry virgins; further, if the wife of the ''Flamen Dialis'' died, he was immediately required to resign. It is not clear if this was true of the other priests.
==See also== * [[Manus marriage]] * [[Marriage in ancient Rome]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Italic title}} [[Category:Ancient Roman rituals]] [[Category:History of food and drink]] [[Category:Marriage in ancient Rome]] [[Category:Types of marriage]] [[Category:Roman law]]