A year and six months must elapse after a divorce before the woman was allowed to marry again.[107] If at the time of the divorce she was pregnant, her husband was obliged to support her offspring, provided that within thirty days after the separation she informed him of her condition.[108] She could sue her former husband for damages if he insulted her.[109] Whether the children should stay with the mother or father was left to the discretion of the judge.[110] [Sidenote: Property rights of widows and single women.] The married woman had, as I have shown, complete disposal of her own property. Let us see next what rights those women had over their possessions who were widows or spinsters. Roman Law constantly strove to protect the children and laid it down as a maxim that the property of their parents belonged to them.[111] A widow could not therefore, except by special permission from the emperor,[112] be the legal guardian of her children, but must ask the court to appoint one upon the death of her husband.[113] This was to prevent possible mismanagement and because "to undertake the legal defence of others is the office of men."[114] But she was permitted to assume complete charge of her children's property during their minority and enjoy the usufruct; only she must render an account of the goods when the children arrived at maturity.[115] We have many instances of women who managed their children's patrimony and did it exceedingly well. "You managed our patrimony in such wise," writes Seneca to his mother,[116] "that you exerted yourself as if it were yours and yet abstained from it as if it belonged to others."[117] Agricola, father-in-law of Tacitus, had such confidence in his wife's business ability that he made her co-heir with his daughter and the Emperor Domitian.[118] A mother could get an injunction to restrain extravagance on the part of her children.[119] Women could not adopt.[120] Married women, spinsters, and widows had as much freedom as men in disposing of property by will. If there were children, the Roman law put certain limitations on the testator's powers, whether man or woman. By the Falcidian Law no one was allowed to divert more than three fourths of his estate from his (or her) natural heirs.[121] But for any adequate cause a woman could disinherit her children completely; and there are many instances of this extant both in the Law Books and in the literature of the day.[122]