Definition
A Latin phrase meaning, literally, "Have your things to yourself" or "Take your things to yourself." In Roman law, the formal verbal formula by which a husband pronounced divorce upon his wife. The utterance of this phrase — or its functional equivalent — constituted the repudiation of the marital bond under early Roman legal tradition. No judicial proceeding was required; the declaration itself effected the dissolution. The phrase is also encountered in variant form as *tuas res tibi agito* ("manage your own affairs"), which served the same repudiating function in different periods of Roman practice.
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Common Confusion
Burrill's entry conflates two entirely separate headwords. After defining *tuas res tibi habeto* correctly, the entry pivots without transition to define *Tuitisch* or *Teutisch* — a wholly unrelated Latin term of art referring to the vernacular language of a native population, derived from the Saxon *theod* (people). The two terms share no legal relationship. Researchers consulting Burrill should treat the second definition as a separate entry that was typographically merged with this one, not as an extension of the divorce formula.
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Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively as a historical artifact rather than operative law. Its research value is primarily comparative and contextual:
**Roman law foundations.** For researchers tracing the history of divorce law, *tuas res tibi habeto* represents the unilateral, extrajudicial model of marriage dissolution that shaped the contrast drawn by later canonists and common lawyers between Roman permissiveness and Christian ecclesiastical requirements. When reading medieval and early modern sources on marriage and divorce, encountering this phrase signals that the author is invoking Roman precedent — often polemically.
**Reception history.** The phrase surfaces in treatises on ecclesiastical law, Reformation-era debates over divorce, and comparative law texts that drew distinctions between civil and canon law regimes. Researchers working on the history of marriage law in England, where ecclesiastical courts controlled matrimonial causes until 1857, will encounter this formula as a shorthand for the civilian tradition England formally rejected.
**Corpus traps.** Because the phrase is Latin and formulaic, it appears in legal dictionaries, encyclopedias, and learned treatises with near-identical language across centuries, often copied verbatim from Calvin's *Lexicon Juridicum* (the cited authority in Black's). Do not mistake repeated appearances for independent authority — most sources are drawing on the same upstream citation chain.
**No operative modern use.** This term has no application in any contemporary legal system. It should not be cited as authority for any proposition about current divorce law. Its utility is confined to historical and comparative analysis.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first edition and the second) provide identical, minimal entries: a translation and the attribution to Calvin — a reference to Johannes Calvin's *Lexicon Juridicum Juris Caesarei Simul et Canonici* (1600), a standard civilian reference work. Neither edition elaborates on the social or procedural context of the formula.
Burrill's entry agrees on the core translation but is unreliable as a standalone source due to the typographical conflation noted above. Researchers should weight Black's over Burrill for this entry.
What the historical dictionaries collectively omit is meaningful: they do not distinguish between the archaic Twelve Tables usage of the formula and its later evolution under classical Roman law, when divorce became more procedurally elaborate and mutual repudiation was recognized alongside unilateral dismissal. The simple formula depicted in the dictionaries reflects the early Republic period; Roman divorce practice developed considerably over the centuries, and the dictionaries present a static snapshot.
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Jurisdictional Note
This term has no jurisdiction-specific application in modern law. It is a historical Roman law formula. Researchers encountering it in primary sources from any common law or civil law jurisdiction are encountering a learned reference, not an operative legal standard.
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