Iudex dicit ius mulieris servandum esse, quia fur pecuniam eius cepit.

After a verb of saying like dicit, Latin often uses an indirect statement instead of a clause with that.

So:

• Iudex dicit = The judge says
• ius mulieris servandum esse = that the woman's right must be preserved

In Latin, indirect statement normally uses:

• a subject in the accusative
• plus an infinitive

Here the subject is ius. It may look nominative, but ius is a neuter noun, so its nominative and accusative singular are the same in form.

Servandum esse is a gerundive + esse construction, often called the passive periphrastic.

It expresses necessity, obligation, or what ought to be done.

So servandum esse means:

• must be preserved
• ought to be protected
• needs to be kept safe

The verb comes from servo, meaning preserve, save, protect, or keep.

Because it agrees with ius.

• ius is neuter singular
• so servandum must also be neuter singular

The gerundive behaves like an adjective, so it matches the noun it goes with in gender, number, and case.

Mulieris is genitive singular of mulier, meaning woman.

The genitive here shows possession or close relationship:

• ius mulieris = the woman's right
• literally, the right of the woman

So mulieris depends on ius, not on dicit or servandum.

Ius can mean several related things, including:

• law
• right
• justice
• legal entitlement

In this sentence, ius mulieris most naturally means the woman's right or the woman's legal right, because it refers to something belonging to or owed to her.

It actually is accusative in function, but the form does not change.

Ius is a neuter third-declension noun, and in Latin many neuter nouns have the same form for nominative and accusative singular.

So:

• nominative singular: ius
• accusative singular: ius

That is why the word looks unchanged.

Because suus/sua/suum refers back to the subject of its own clause.

In the clause quia fur pecuniam eius cepit, the subject is fur.

So:

• suam pecuniam would mean his own money — the thief's own money
• eius pecuniam means her money or his money, referring to someone else

Here eius refers back to the woman, not to the thief.

Pecuniam is accusative singular.

It is the direct object of cepit, because it is the thing the thief took.

So:

• fur = the thief, the subject
• cepit = took
• pecuniam = the money, the object

Cepit is the perfect active indicative of capio.

Depending on context, the Latin perfect can often be translated as:

• took
• has taken

In this sentence, took is probably the most natural English translation, because it gives the reason for the judge's statement.

Because fur is the subject of cepit.

The thief is the one performing the action of taking, so Latin puts fur in the nominative.

Even though fur may look a little unfamiliar, it is simply the nominative singular form of the noun meaning thief.

Quia means because and introduces a clause of reason.

So the structure is:

• The judge says ...
• because the thief took her money

The quia clause explains the reason for the judge's statement.

Also, Latin uses the indicative here (cepit) because the theft is being presented as a fact.

The sentence does not explicitly say.

The gerundive construction tells us that the woman's right must be preserved, but it does not name the person or group responsible.

Latin can express the person responsible with a dative of agent in this kind of construction, but that is not present here. So the sentence leaves the agent unstated.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order, because Latin uses endings to show grammatical relationships.

So even if the order changes, the endings still tell you what each word is doing.

In this sentence:

• Iudex is the subject of dicit
• ius belongs with servandum esse
• mulieris modifies ius
• fur is the subject of cepit
• pecuniam is the object of cepit

English relies much more heavily on word order, but Latin does not need to.