If it be thought that the loss of character must have been proportionally great in the case of the dependent members of the household, it must be remembered that the _patria potestas_ is, for the individual, a transitory condition of things. Each subject member is preparing himself to be a _pater_ in his own right. With the death of the existing head, _all_ the hitherto dependent members are freed from the _potestas_; each forms a _familia_ of his own; even his grandchildren by predeceased sons become heads of houses; the daughters are also freed from power, although, out of deference to the weakness of the sex, they are still under guardianship (_tutela_).[87] The family splits up into a number of _familiae_, and none of these is of more importance than the other. For the evils of primogeniture were unknown to Roman law. No hereditary caste based on the accident of birth was ever formed; and when we find an aristocracy of birth arising, it is the fittest son who can succeed his father in political office; for the bulk of the property, on which political influence was based, has not passed into the hands of some incapable elder brother. But, apart from the moral checks on the authority of the father, which the absence of legal restraints made peculiarly strong, the civil law, public opinion, and the positive morality which found expression through certain religious or semi-religious organs, did impose certain restraints on a possible abuse of power. If the father is a lunatic (_furiosus_) he is, with his property, put under the care of his next of kin;[88] if he is wasteful (_prodigus_) and is squandering the property, of which (though legally it is his own) he is regarded only as the trustee, he is debarred from all commercial relations (_commercium_)[89] and prohibited from disposing of goods of which he is an unworthy administrator.