139 



give to him, his wife and the child, the rights of Roman 

 citizens. 



The deductio in domum is often considered as a necessary 

 ceremony for commencing matrimony ; but though it 

 seems to have been a usual ceremony, as well as the 

 declaration before friends, inter amicos, it was by no means 

 necessary for the legal completion of the marriage, yet it 

 was another act by which a legitimate matrimony was 

 proved, and from which it was counted in point of time. 



The lawyer Scsevola, who lived under Marcus Aurelius, 

 says, in a quotation in the Pandects, in speaking about a 

 donation, whether it was made after or before the mar- 

 riage, " prtusquam ad eum transiret (that is to say, the 

 virgo) et priusquam aqua et igni acciperetur, id est, nuptim 

 celehrentur'''' (Dig. xxiv. tit. i.), it seems, therefore, that 

 the ceremony of giving water and fire, the two principle 

 elements as a sign for the " consortium omnis vitce" was 

 still in use in the latter part of the second century after 

 Christ, and formed, together with the ^^ deductio in domum,'' 

 the general way of entering married life. The receiving 

 of water and fire played formerly a part in the religious 

 ceremony of the confarreatio ; but this confarreatio was no 

 longer customary at the time of Augustus, except with 

 the marriage of sovae flaruines, some of the highest priests. 

 The Romans, or rather the inhabitants of the Roman 

 empire, therefore, it is certain, did not even in the latest 

 ante-Christian era. enter generally so unceremoniously 

 upon the bond of marriage ; for even some religious rites 

 were preserved amongst the heathen subjects of Rome 

 as late as the time of Marcus Aurelius, when already 

 Christianity began to spread her communities in the 

 eastern parts of the Roman empire. It might be sup- 

 posed that, when Constantine planted Christianity upon 

 the throne of the Caosars, this new religion would have 

 had nothing more eagerly to do than to change entirely 



