Dominium
Dominium or
rerum dominium signifies ownership of
property, and
dominus is the owner.
Proprietas is
frequently used as an equivalent to
dominium; and when ownership is
distinguished from
usus fructus, the word
proprietas
is preferred to
dominium as an expression for ownership. The term
dominium or
dominium legitimum is, strictly speaking,
confined to ownership
ex iure Quiritium—i. e. to civil
ownership—and does not include ownership
in bonis—i.
e. praetorian ownership.
Ownership is not defined by Roman legal writers, but the general notion implied in the term
is clear. It is a right which, subject to certain legal limitations, entitles a person to
exercise full control over a corporeal thing to the exclusion of all other persons. Ownership
cannot, however, be defined by enumerating all the powers which may be incidental to it, as
the
ius utendi, fruendi, possidendi, disponendi, since ownership may
exist notwithstanding that one or more of these powers is detached from it. A thing may be
considered to belong to a person whose powers over it are very much curtailed; hence arises
the difficulty of defining ownership. The limitations to which ownership in Roman law is
subject are either general or special. The former are imposed for the purpose of enforcing the
precept
sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas: they prevent owners from so
using their powers as to injure adjoining owners or the public generally. Special limitations
on ownership arise by persons acquiring rights over property owned by some one else. For
instance, the owner may be bound to allow to another person a certain use or enjoyment of the
thing of which he is
dominus, or to abstain from doing certain acts on or
to his property and for the benefit of some other person. The only rights of this kind
recognized by Roman law are
servitus, emphyteusis, superficies, pignus:
such rights are called
iura in re aliena; they are protected, like
dominium, by actions
in rem: their nature is more fully
explained under the head of
Servitus. Ownership is
in its nature single and entire; consequently the same thing cannot belong to several separate
owners, but several persons may be joint
domini or owners of one thing.
