Wills Formalities in the 21st Century

Testicle gripping had solemn significance in ancient pre-Roman times. When a man took an oath, the action’s importance was underscored by the equally memorable act of publicly holding either his own or another man’s genitals.

These are the opening lines of my article on Wills Formalities in the Twenty-First Century, 2019 Wisc.  L. Rev. 269. Call me...fixated...but I haven't been able to get the fact out of my mind since I read this article more than 20 years ago: Joshua T. Katz, Testimonia Ritus Italici: Male Genitalia, Solemn Declarations, and a New Latin Sound Law, 98 Harv. Stud. Classical Philology 183 (1998). I'm glad to be able to put to good use this otherwise random (to me, not to linguists, of course) knowledge. The joys of cross-disciplinary reading are abundant.

Comments

[Enrique Guerra-Pujol]

Thanks for sharing!