Trecerea de la copilărie la maturitate și rolul căsătoriei în nord-estul provinciei romane Moesia Inferior (Scythia Minor)

Abstract

Transition from Childhood to Adulthood and the Meaning of Marriage in the Northeast of the Roman Province of Moesia Inferior (Scythia Minor)

In the Roman classical time, as well as during the Christian period, the very young age of marriageable girls indicates that their passage from childhood to adulthood was somewhat enforced. Our study aims to observe and comment on several aspects regarding the de jure and de facto marriageable age and consequently the age of passage from childhood to adulthood between the 1st and the 6th centuries AD in the area corresponding to the late Roman province Scythia Minor. The importance of marriage and childbearing in the Roman world is revealed, also, by the sources that refer to the premature death of young people, before their marriage.
Analyzing the symbolic meaning of funeral inventory in graves of marriageable girls is another objective of this study. The clothing, the jewels and the rest of the funeral inventory, together with the specific rituals might reveal unmarried status of the deceased young woman, but also her nulliparial status and consequently her symbolic “childhood”.

Keywords: Moesia Inferior, Scythia Minor, marriage, childhood, adulthood, funeral inventory.