Cognates / Cognatic Relatives
Cognates / Cognatic relatives – from the Latin cognatus, meaning “blood relative” – in Roman law, blood relatives, both male and female, related through either the male or the female line.
This type of kinship in Ancient Rome replaced so-called agnatic kinship, which was based on the subordination of all family members to the authority of the head of the household. With the development of the productive forces, the power of the father of the family, or patria potestas, became limited in all its manifestations: in relation to the wife, children, and their descendants.
Gradually, agnatic kinship was displaced by cognatic kinship, and blood relationship, or cognatio, acquired increasing legal significance. This development took place on the basis of profound changes in the political and economic life of Rome, simultaneously with changes in forms of property, the liberation of the law of contracts and obligations from formalism, and in inseparable connection with the establishment of the ius gentium, or law of nations.
Blood relationship is determined by lines and degrees. Lines of kinship are divided into direct and collateral lines. If relatives descend from one another successively, they are relatives in the direct line. The direct line is divided into ascending and descending lines.
Relatives in the direct line from whom a given person descends – father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, and so on – are relatives in the direct ascending line. Relatives in the direct line who descend from a given person – children, grandchildren, and so on – are relatives in the direct descending line.
Relatives who descend from a common ancestor are relatives in the collateral line, such as brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and so on. The degree of kinship is determined by the number of births that form the given relationship, beginning from the common ancestor but excluding that ancestor. Thus, full brothers are relatives of the second degree: this kinship relation presupposes a common father and two sons.
Brothers and sisters may be full or half siblings. Brothers and sisters who had both the same father and the same mother were recognized as full siblings. If brothers and sisters had the same father but different mothers, they were half siblings related through the father; if they had the same mother but different fathers, they were half siblings related through the mother.
Blood relationship was recognized through both the father’s line and the mother’s line. During the late Republic, the significance of blood relationship increased. Praetorian law provided protection to blood relatives depending on the degree of kinship. Thus, if there were heirs of the third degree, such as nephews or nieces, and of the fourth degree, such as cousins, only relatives of the third degree were called to inheritance (Shemshuchenko, 1998).
Reference:
Shemshuchenko, Yu. (Ed.). (1998). Yurydychna entsyklopediia: V 6 t. [Legal encyclopedia: In 6 vols.]. Kyiv: Ukrainska entsyklopediia. Retrieved from http://leksika.com.ua/legal/ [in Ukrainian].
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