Patria

Paternal; also, the pays or vicinage; the men of a neighborhood. Thus, when it is said inquiratur per patriam, a jury of the neighborhood is meant.

Patria potestas

Paternal authority. This name was given, in the Roman law, to that power which the paterfamilias had over all the members of his family, — the family including his wife, children, and grandchildren, as well as those who became members of the family by marriage or adoption. At one time, this power was very extensive, — for under it the paterfamilias could sell, abandon, or put to death any member of his family; but subsequently it was much limited, and ultimately it gave the paterfamilias scarcely any other right than that of demanding as his own any property which was acquired or succeeded to by a member of the family. The patria potestas is the name for the rights enjoyed by the head of a Roman family over his legitimate children. The potestas could be enjoyed only by Roman citizens; and thus the loss of citizenship involved the loss of the potestas. The powers enjoyed by a father over his children were ject to a very important qualification. Within the domain of private law, a sou was scarcely to be distinguished from a slave; but in the sphere of public rights and duties, the son was free and independent. The state had the first claim on its citizens; and, where its demands intervened, the paternal despotism was excluded. Thus a son could be elected magistrate, although he could not marry without his father's consent; and he could act as tutor even against his father's wishes, because the office of tutor was a public duty. In the same way, a son could act as judex, or judicial referee, even to his own father. Again, a son elected consul could himself superintend the ceremony of his own emancipation from the potestas. Within the sphere of private law, however, the position of a son Is strictly to be compared with that of a slave.

Hunter Eom. Law, 43.

It was the existence of the potestas that determined the legal constitution of a Eoman family, so artificial as it seemed to us, as indeed it did to the jurisconsults of the empire. The Roman family cannot be defined as consisting of parents with their children: it was composed of those persons who were subject to the potestas of the same individual, whether they were his children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or entirely unconnected with him In blood. Hence a child, who had been emancipated from the potestas, was at first, from a legal point of view, no member of the family; while a stranger, introduced by adoption, was regarded, to all intents and purposes, as the ofispring of the head of the family. So far was this view carried, that the conception of blood relationship was submerged in that of persons living under the same potestas. A sister, who was married into another family, and placed under a different potestas, was looked on as no longer related to her brothers for any legal purpose. The history of Roman law discloses a series of changes by which the Roman family was brought nearer and nearer to the modern point of view.

Jd. 48.

At first, the father is despot, or owner; he has all the essential rights of ownership, — the right to use the son's services, the right to part with them, the right to destroy. But gradually these rights are limited: the father ceases to be the proprietor; he becomes the natural protector and guardian of his children. Such was the tendency of Roman law; although, as appears from the latest law, it never went so far in the direction of giving Independence to the child, as is now considered necessary in all civilized nations.

Id. 47.