The form of religious marriage peculiar to the Patricians necessitated a change of _gens_ on the part of the wife; for a woman married by the ceremony of _confarreatio_ became a partner in the property and _sacra_ of her husband,[71] and there is even some trace of her having originally changed her gentile name as well.[72] The ordinary plebeian form of marriage by mere agreement (_consensus_), which ultimately became almost universal, did not lead to a woman’s falling into the _potestas_ of her husband, unless this power were assumed, originally by prescriptive right (_usus_), later by the ceremony of fictitious purchase (_coemptio_). In such a case she became a member of her husband’s family, but it is questionable whether the logical conclusion was pressed and she also became a member of his _gens_. The anomaly, if it existed, may perhaps be explained by the fact that the Plebeians, who evolved these forms of marriage, had, as a rule, no _gentes_. The clan might also be changed by adoption. _Adrogatio_—perhaps the only form known to the old patrician community—was the method by which the head of a family voluntarily submitted himself to the _potestas_ of another. _Adoptio_, on the other hand, was the change from one _potestas_ to another. If there was a form of true adoption by patrician law,[73] it has been lost to us, and the earliest that we hear of is the plebeian form by threefold sale recognised in the Twelve Tables. At a later period it might also be effected by a written testament. The family (_familia_)[74] in its original and proper meaning is the aggregate of members of a household under a common head; this head was the _paterfamilias_—the _only_ member of the household who possesses legal rights.