[81] The South Slavonian house community is an early institution; see KRAUSS, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, 2 ff., 64-128; BOTSFORD, _op. cit._, 12-21; GIRAUD-TEULON, _op. cit._, 340, 341; MCLENNAN, _op. cit._, 71-119; MAINE, _Ancient Law_, 118; _Early Law and Custom_, 232-82. But it is not primitive. KOVALEVSKY, _Mod. Customs and Anc. Laws of Russia_, chaps. i, ii, finds many survivals, as he believes, of an earlier maternal system of kinship and succession. [82] The question for the Germans will be again referred to; see chap. vi, below. [83] GAIUS, I, 55, Poste, 61. [84] Such is the view of MCLENNAN, _Patriarchal Theory_, 136-40, 181 ff., 205 ff., 214, 260-62, where Maine's theory of agnation is criticised. [85] "The last vestiges of the two disappeared from the law together. But, in fact, agnation went first. The paternal powers were susceptible of abridgment and restriction in various ways short of extinction. The wife might become free from them; the children also; and yet they might remain for the slaves. And it was thus gradually that they perished. But agnation is perfect, or it ceases to be agnation. And the moment the ties of blood through women received civil effects agnation was no more."--_Patriarchal Theory_, 182. On the decay of agnation and _patria potestas_ see SOHM, _Institutes_, 357, 358, 389-93, 438-47; PUCHTA, _Institutionen_, II, 18, 384 ff., 431 ff., 457 ff.; MUIRHEAD, _Introduction to the Private Law of Rome_, 422 ff., 343-49; MAINE, _Ancient Law_, chap. v; MOREY, _Roman Law_, 78, 129, 150, 240-43, 248.