Impedimenti matrimoniali per consanguineità nell’Italia preaugustea

According to current doctrine, impediments against consanguineous marriage were extended to the sixth degree until the third century BC. From that mo- ment on, the situation would change with the progressive liberalisation of marriage up to the first cousins, which became a tolerated practice. The analysis of metajuridical sources actually supports a substantially different picture, where marriage between first cousins was a widespread practice ab antiquo. Only under the reign of Augustus the jurisprudential debate of the last decades of the Republic produced a legal rule about marriage impediments that would become crucial in later elaborations.