There were at Rome three kinds of marriages, which I have already named--1st, The _usus_, resulting from a simple continuous cohabitation, without contract or ceremony, a sort of Tahitian marriage; 2nd, the _coemptio_ or purchase, of which I have spoken at length--that is to say, the legal regulation of the primitive marriage by purchase, in use all over the world at the origin of civilisations. Coemption, without any palliatives, delivered the wife’s body and goods to her husband; 3rd, the _confarreatio_, or aristocratic marriage, in which the high Pontiff of Jupiter gave, in the presence of ten witnesses, a cake made of flour, water, and salt to the bride and bridegroom, who ate it between them. The _manus_ was conferred on the husband in the marriage by confarreation, the same as in the marriage by _usus_ and _coemptio_. We must note that at Rome, as in Greece, the religious ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage, which was a laic and civil institution in the first place.[613] These three forms of marriage very probably represent the evolution of the conjugal union in ancient Rome. The _usus_, or free cohabitation, must have been the commencement; then came the purchase of the wife, the _coemptio_, and at length the solemn marriage or _confarreatio_ of the patricians. But marriage with the husband’s right of _manus_ subsisted for a long time, and it conferred on him all the customary licence of savages of every country, notably that of lending the wife, and this exorbitant right endured till the best days of Rome, since the virtuous Cato of Utica used it still in lending his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius. This fact is curious, and deserves attention. Hortensius began by asking for the loan of Cato’s daughter, Portia, already married to Bibulus, and the mother of two children. It was, says Plutarch, with the object of selection, that he might have a child of good race; he promised to return her afterwards to her husband. On the refusal of Cato, Hortensius fell back on Martia, Cato’s own wife, who was at the time _enceinte_. Cato was not at all shocked at the proposition, but referred it, however, to Philip, his father-in-law, who also saw no harm in it. A contract was therefore concluded between Cato, Hortensius, and Philip; and Martia, whom no one thought of consulting, was yielded to Hortensius, and afterwards taken back, at the death of the latter, by Cato. She was then the heir of Hortensius, and Cato had not the least scruple in receiving her back with her money at the same time.[614]