Diodorus Siculus, Library

Contents of the Twelfth Book of Diodorus

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XVIII. A second law, which gave a wife the right to divorce her husband and marry whomever she chose, was also revised. A certain man, who was well advanced in years and had a wife who was younger than he and had left him, proposed to the Thurians that they revise the law by the added provision that the wife who leaves a husband may marry whomever she chooses, provided the man is not younger than her former husband; and that likewise, if a man sends his wife away he may not marry a woman younger than the wife whom he had sent away. [2] The elderly man won his proposal and set at naught the former law, also escaping the peril of the noose which threatened him; and his wife, who had thus been prevented from living with a younger husband, married again the man she had left.

[3] A third law to be revised had to do with heiresses and is also found in the legislation of Solon.¹ Charondas ordered that the next of kin be assigned in marriage to an heiress and that likewise an heiress be assigned in marriage to her nearest relative, who was required to marry her or, if she were poor, to contribute five hundred drachmas as a dowry of the penniless heiress. [4] And a certain orphan who was an heiress, of good birth but altogether without means of support and so unable by reason of her poverty to find a husband, turned to the people for aid, explaining to them with tears how helpless and scorned she was; and she went on to outline the revision of the law whereby, in place of the payment of five hundred drachmas, it should specify that the next of kin be required to marry the heiress who had been assigned to him. The people took pity on her and voted for the revision of the law, and thus the orphan escaped the peril which threatened her from the noose, while the nearest of kin, who was wealthy, was compelled to take to wife a penniless heiress without a dowry.

¹ See Plut. Sol. 20.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
OCLC: 24758311
ISBN: 0674994132, 0674994221, 0674994396, 0674994280, 0674994647

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