The practice of celibacy generally leads to irregular attachments between the sexes. In a society ignorant of slavery, such attachments, as giving rise to social inconveniences far greater than those of marriage, are usually shunned on prudential grounds even where moral motives are of no avail. But the existence in Italy of a large class of female dependants, absolutely outside the social circle of the citizen body, rendered the attachment of the master to his slave girl or to his freedwoman fatally easy and unembarrassing. It was unfortunately as attractive as it was easy. Amidst the mass of servile humanity that had drifted to Italy from most of the quarters of the world there was scarcely a type that might not reproduce some strange and wonderful beauty. And the charm of manner might be secured as readily as that of face and form. The Hellenic East must often have exhibited in its women that union of wit, grace and supple tact which made even its men so irresistible to their Roman masters. The courtesans of the capital, whether of high or low estate,[182] are from the point of view which we are considering not nearly so important as the permanent mistress or "concubine" of the man who might dwell in any part of Italy. It was the latter, not the former, that was the true substitute for the wife. There is reason to believe that it was about this period that "concubinage" became an institution which was more than tolerated by society.[183] The relation which it implied between the man and his companion, who was generally one of his freedwomen, was sufficiently honourable. It excluded the idea of union with any other woman, whether by marriage or temporary association; it might be more durable than actual wedlock, for facilities for divorce were rapidly breaking the permanence of the latter bond; it might satisfy the juristic condition of "marital affection" quite as fully as the type of union to which law or religion gave its blessing. But it differed from marriage in one point of vital importance for the welfare of the State. Children might be the issue of _concubinatus_, but they were not looked on as its end. Such unions were not formed _liberum quaerendorum causa_.