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only he was restricted by a family council, which decided 

 over life and death of the unfortunate female. The Roman 

 historians relate several examples of such family-courts, 

 especially Livius, lib. xxxix. cap. 18., in the affairs of the 

 Bachanalia. That the wife had no property of her own 

 was a matter of course in such a slavery. Still more 

 oppressive for the children was the unbounded power of 

 the patria 2>otestas ; even mvirder was not excepted from 

 the rights of the father over his children. The patria 

 potestas was the more inconvenient for the son, as not his 

 coming of age or getting married, but only the death of 

 the father or emancipation, could deliver him from it. 

 The peculiam castrense was the only exception from the 

 power of a father whose son gained property as a soldier 

 in the field. 



However, I have already mentioned, that in the 

 earliest institutions of Rome two principles are visible, 

 the struggle of which might be traced through the 

 whole history of the Roman law up to Justinian. 

 Thus the confarreatio seemed to have been restricted to 

 the patricians already in the earliest times, and to have 

 belonged to that jus sacrum which the patricians con- 

 sidered as the peculiar law of their caste. Whether this 

 ceremony is of Sabine or Latin origin is of little import- 

 ance to us, yet I think there can be little doubt that it is 

 by far more in accordance with the spirit of the Sabinian 

 laws, than with that of the livelier and more soldier-like 

 Latins. The Plebeian families, who settled in Rome, 

 belonging to other tribes, had certainly different religious 

 I'ites, and could not adopt a ceremony which had for 

 them no meaning and no religious solemnity. People 

 generally are in nothing more particular than in adopt- 

 ing a ceremony which differs in the slightest from their 

 accustomed rites. We might more easily impose upon 

 them a new doctrine than a new cereraonv. Yet it is not 



