Definition
In Roman and civil law, *privigna* is the Latin term for a stepdaughter — that is, the daughter of one's spouse by a prior union, not a child of the current marriage. The term appears in civil law texts and legal instruments drawn from or influenced by the Roman legal tradition. Its masculine counterpart is *privignus* (stepson).
---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *privigna* in primary sources will almost always be working with civil law materials, Roman law texts, or early ecclesiastical and canon law documents. The term does not appear in the common law tradition with any currency; it surfaces in English legal dictionaries chiefly as a reference term for those reading Justinian's Institutes, the Digest, or civil law commentaries.
The practical research trap is in inheritance and family law documents. Where a will, settlement, or inheritance instrument from a civil law jurisdiction (or a jurisdiction with mixed civil/common law heritage, such as Louisiana, Quebec, or South Africa) names a *privigna*, a researcher must not assume a biological daughter. The distinction between *filia* (daughter) and *privigna* (stepdaughter) carries real legal weight in questions of intestate succession, legitimacy, and the degrees of affinity relevant to marriage prohibitions.
In canon law materials, the degrees of consanguinity and affinity — which governed impediments to marriage — used the civil law relational vocabulary extensively. *Privigna* appears in those contexts when defining prohibited degrees: a man was generally prohibited from marrying his *privigna* under both Roman law and canonical rules. Researchers working on annulment records, dispensations, or ecclesiastical court proceedings should flag the term accordingly.
Nothing in the Law Mind corpus connects *privigna* to common law doctrine. If the term appears in an English-language legal instrument predating full reception of equity or civil law terminology, treat that as a signal of civil law influence in the drafting.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary agree completely: *privigna* means stepdaughter in the civil law. The definitions are minimal and consistent, offering no doctrinal elaboration. This brevity is appropriate — the term is a relational label, not a doctrine — but it leaves researchers without guidance on how the term functioned within Roman family law structures or how it intersected with rules governing tutorship, inheritance shares (particularly under the *lex Falcidia* and *lex Voconia*), or the affinity prohibitions in marriage law.
Neither edition of Black's addresses the term's masculine counterpart (*privignus*), nor the broader family of step-relation terms in Roman law (*noverca* for stepmother, *vitricus* for stepfather). For a researcher needing that relational vocabulary in full, the historical dictionaries are incomplete and primary civil law sources — or a dedicated Roman law glossary — are necessary.
The apparent intrusion of text about privateers in the 2nd edition entry ("duly commissioned by a belligerent power to go on cruises…") is a printing artifact — a fragment from an adjacent entry for *privateer* that ran over into the *privigna* entry. It has no substantive connection to the term and should be disregarded.
---
Jurisdictional Note
*Privigna* has no operative role in modern common law jurisdictions. It remains relevant as a reading term for researchers in civil law jurisdictions or in any historical context where Roman law or canon law governed family relations, inheritance, or marriage impediments.
---