BACHELOR, or BATCHELOR, a common term for a man not married, or who is yet in a state of celibacy. The Roman censors frequently imposed fines on bachelors. Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions an old constitution, by which all persons of full age were obliged to marry. But the most celebrated law of this kind was that made under Augustus, called the Lex Julia de Maritandis Ordinibus, by which bachelors were made incapable of taking legacies or inheritances by will, unless from their near relations. By the laws of Lycurgus bachelors were branded with infamy, and excluded from all offices civil and military, nay even from the shows and public sports. At certain feasts they were exposed to public derision, and led round the market-place. In the canon law we find injunctions on bachelors, when arrived at puberty, either to marry, or to turn monks and profess chastity in earnest.