Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

capitis deminutio

[Latin "reduction of status"] Romanlaw. A diminution or abridgment of a person's legal status. - Also spelled capitis diminutio. Pl. capitis deminutiones. "Capitis deminutio is the destruction of the 'caput' or legal personality. Capitis deminutio, so to speak, wipes out the former individual and puts a new one in his place, and between the old and the new individual there is, legally speaking, nothing in common. A juristic personality may be thus destroyed in onp of three ways: (1) by loss of the status libertatis. This is the capitis deminutio maxima; (2) by loss of the status civitatis. This is the capitis deminutio media (magna); (3) by severance from the agnatic family. This entails capitis deminutio minima." Rudolph Sohm, The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law 178-79 (James Crawford Ledlie trans., 3d ed. 1907).