(celibatus, or coelibatus, single life; coelēs or coelēs, an unmarried person); the unmarried state. Scaliger derives the word from κοῖνη, bed, and ἀρέσκω, to love; and some more fancifully, from coeli beatitudine, i.e., the blessedness of heaven.

Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, states that at a certain festival at Sparta, the women were enjoined to flog old bachelors around an altar, that they might be constrained to take wives.

The ancient Romans enacted various laws to discourage celibacy. Dionysius Halcarnassus mentions an ancient constitution by which all persons of mature age were obliged to marry. But the first law of that kind of which we have any certain information is that under Augustus, called Lex Julia de Maritandis Ordinibus. It was afterwards denominated Popia Poppaea, and more usually Julia Papia, on account of some new sanctions and amendments made to it under the consuls Papius and Poppaeus. By this law various prerogatives were given to persons who had many children; while penalties were imposed on those who lived a single life, such as being incapable of receiving legacies, unless they married within the space of a hundred days from the testator's death.