In this extract, Elbert Hubbard follows Marcus Aurelius as he assumes power.The Emperor is also the Chief Justice. Here Elbert Hubbard analyzes how Marcus used his position to reform marriage and divorce laws. He also attempted to remove the stigma associated with ‘illegitimate children’. Elbert argues that our laws in these areas haven’t changed much since the days of Marcus Aurelius.

Peaceful and prosperous times

Happy is the man who has no history. The reign of Antoninus Pius was peaceful and prosperous. No great wars nor revulsions occurred, and the times made for education and excellence. Antoninus worked to conserve the good, and that he succeeded, Gibbon says, there is no doubt. He left the country in better condition than he found it, and he could have truthfully repeated the words of Pericles, "I have made no person wear crepe."

Good times don’t last forever

But there came a day when Antoninus was stricken by the hand of death. The captain of the guard came to him and asked for the password for the night. "Equanimity," replied the Emperor, and turning on his side, sank into sleep, to awake no more.

His last word symbols the guiding impulse of his life. Well does Renan say: "Simple, loving, full of sweet gaiety, Antoninus was a philosopher without saying so, almost without knowing it.

Marcus was a philosopher, but often consciously, and he became a philosopher by study and reflection, aided and encouraged by the older man. You cannot consider the one man and leave the other out, and the early contention that Antoninus was, in fact, the father of Marcus has at least a poetic and spiritual basis in truth."

There was much in Renan's suggestions. The greatest man is he who works his philosophy up into life— this is better than to talk about it. We only discuss that to which we have not attained, and the virtues we talk most of are those beyond us. The ideal outstrips the actual. But it is no discredit that a man pictures more than he realizes— such a one is preparing the way for others. Marcus Antoninus has been a guiding star— an inspiration— to untold millions.

Marcus Aurelius was forty years old when he became Emperor of Rome. At the age of forty a man is safe, if ever: character is formed, and what he will do or become, can be safely presaged. More than once Rome has repudiated the man in the direct line of accession to the throne, and before Marcus Aurelius took the reins of government he asked the Senate to ratify the people's choice, and thus make it the choice of the gods, and this was done.

As Emperor, we find Marcus endeavored to carry out the policy of his predecessor. He did not favor expansion, but hoped by peace and propitiation to cement the empire and thus work for education, harmony and prosperity.

The Emperor as the chief judge

It is interesting to see how Marcus Aurelius in the year One Hundred Sixty-four was cudgeling his brains concerning problems about which we yet argue and grow red in the face. The Emperor was also Chief Justice, and questions were being constantly brought to him to decide. From him there was no appeal, and his decisions made the law upon which all lesser judges based their rulings. And curiously enough we are dealing most extensively in judge-made law even today.

There are no “illegitimate children”

One vexed question that confronted Marcus was the lessening number of marriages, with a consequent increase in illegitimate births and a gradual dwindling of the free population. He seems to have disliked this word illegitimate, for he says, "All children are beautiful blessings— sent by the gods." But people who were legally married objected to this view, and said to recognize children born out of wedlock as entitled to all the privileges of citizenship is virtually to do away with legal marriage. As a compromise, Marcus decided to recognize all people as married who said they were married. This is exactly our common-law marriage as it exists in various States today.

Introducing divorce trials

However, a man could put away his wife at will, and by recording the fact with the nearest pretor, the act was legalized. It will thus be seen that if a man could marry at will and put away his wife at will, there was really no marriage beyond that of nature. To meet the issue, and prevent fickle and unjust men from taking advantage of women, Marcus decided that the pretor could refuse to record the desired divorce, if he saw fit, and demand reasons.

We then for the first time get a divorce trial, and on appeal to Marcus, he decided that if the man were in the wrong, he must still support the injured wife. Then, for the first time, we find women asking for a divorce. Now, nearly three-fourths of all divorces are granted to women; but at first, that a woman should want marital freedom caused a howl of merriment.

Women’s right to petition

Marcus was the first Roman Emperor to allow women the right of petition, and the privilege, too, of practising law, for Capitolanus cites various instances of women coming to ask for justice, and women friends coming with them to help plead their case, and the Emperor of Rome, leaning his tired head on his arm, listening for hours with great patience.

We also hear of petitions for damages being presented for failure to keep a promise to marry— the action being brought against the girl's father. This would be thought a trifle strange, but an action against a woman for breach of promise is quite in order yet. Recently the Honorable Henry Ballard of Vermont won heavy damages against a coy and dallying heiress who had played pitch and toss with a good man's heart. The case was carried to the United States Supreme Court and judgment sustained. The question of marriage and divorce now in the United States is almost precisely where it was in Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius.

No two States have the same marriage-laws, and marriages which are illegal in one State may be made legal in another. Yet with us, any court of jurisdiction may declare any marriage illegal, or set any divorce aside. What makes marriage and what constitutes divorce are matters of opinion in the mind of the judge.

Easy marriage, difficult divorce

We have gone a bit further than Marcus, though, in that we allow couples to marry if they wish, yet divorce is denied if both parties desire it. The fact that they want it is construed as proof that they should not have it. We meet the issue, however, by connivance of the lawyers, who are officers of the court, and a legal fiction is inaugurated by allowing a little bird to tell the judge what decision will be satisfactory to both sides. And in States or countries where no divorce is allowed, marriage can be annulled if you know how— see Ruskin versus Ruskin, Coleridge, J.

Our zealous New Thought friends, who clamor to have marriage made difficult and divorce easy, forget that the whole question has been threshed over for three thousand years, and all schemes tried. The Romans issued marriage-licenses, but before doing so a pretor passed on the fitness of the candidates for each other. This was so embarrassing to many coy couples that they just waived formal proceedings and set up housekeeping.

Making de facto marriages legal

To declare these people lawbreakers, Marcus Aurelius said, would put half of Rome in limbo, just as, if we should technically enforce all laws, it would send most members of the Legislature to the penitentiary. So the Emperor declared defacto marriage de jure, and for a short time succeeded in striking out the word illegitimate as applied to a person, on the ground that, in justice, no act of a parent could be charged up against and punished in the offspring.

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Elbert Hubbard was a renaissance man who was prominent around the early 20th Century. The Story of Marcus Aurelius is from his Little Journeys to The Homes of The Great, Vol. 8. To make it easier to read we have broken down long paragraphs into short ones and added subtitles. The text is unaltered.

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