For the same reasons, the relation of the married persons to each
other is a relation of equality as regards the mutual possession of
their persons, as well as of their goods. Consequently marriage is
only truly realized in monogamy; for in the relation of polygamy the
person who is given away on the one side, gains only a part of the one
to whom that person is given up, and therefore becomes a mere res. But
in respect of their goods, they have severally the right to renounce
the use of any part of them, although only by a special contract.
From the principle thus stated, it also follows that concubinage
is as little capable of being brought under a contract of right as the
hiring of a person on any one occasion, in the way of a pactum
fornicationis. For, as regards such a contract as this latter relation
would imply, it must be admitted by all that any one who might enter
into it could not be legally held to the fulfillment of their
promise if they wished to resile from it. And as regards the former, a
contract of concubinage would also fall as a pactum turpe; because
as a contract of the hire (locatio, conductio), of a part for the
use of another, on account of the inseparable unity of the members
of a person, any one entering into such a contract would be actually
surrendering as a res to the arbitrary will of another.
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