The aes uxorium was a Roman tax paid by those who reached adulthood without marrying,[1] with the exception of the Vestal Virgins.[2]
It was first imposed by the censors in 403 BC under the Lex Papia Poppaea.[1] It was one of the many measures against caelibes (celibates), unless they married within 100 days. Not only did they have to pay the tax, but also they could not have a hereditas or a legacy (legatum).[2] A man, when he attained the age of sixty, and a woman, when she attained the age of fifty, were not included within certain penalties of the law.[3] If they had not obeyed the law before attaining those respective ages, they were perpetually bound by its penalties by a senatus consultum Pernicianum. A senatus consultum Claudianum so far modified the strictness of the new rule as to give a man who married above sixty the same advantage that he would have had if had married under sixty, provided he married a woman who was under fifty; the ground of which rule was the legal notion that a woman under fifty was still capable of having children.[3][4] If the woman was above fifty and the man under sixty, this was called Impar Matrimonium, and by a senatus consultum Calvitianum it was entirely without effect as to releasing from incapacity to take legata and dotes. On the death of the woman, therefore, the dos became caduca.
