Marriage at this
period was called confarreatio (communion through the cake). Later
another form of marriage was invented. A relative of the bride in the
presence of witnesses sells her to the husband who declares that he
buys her for his wife. This is marriage by sale (coemptio).
For the Romans as for the Greeks marriage is a religious duty;
religion ordains that the family should not become extinct. The Roman,
therefore, declares when he marries that he takes his wife to
perpetuate the family through their children. A noble Roman who
sincerely loved his wife repudiated her because she brought him no
children.
=The Roman Woman.=--The Roman woman is never free. As a young girl,
she belongs to her father who chooses her husband for her; married,
she comes under the power of her husband--the jurisconsults say she is
under his "manus," _i.e._, she is in the same position as his
daughter. The woman always has a master who has the right of life and
death over her. And yet, she is never treated like a slave. She is the
equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the
family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the
family (paterfamilias).
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