The _coemptio_, or mutual purchase, consisted of the bride and bridegroom’s giving each other pieces of money. The man asked the woman, “Are you willing to be the mistress of my family?” She answered, “I am willing;” and then asked him a similar question, to which he replied in the same manner. According to some authors it was accompanied with the same ceremonies, and conferred the same privileges, as the other form of marriage; and it continued in use a long time after _confarreatio_ was out of date. That which was called _usus_, or usage, was when a woman, with consent of her parents or guardians, lived a whole year with a man, without being absent from his house three nights. She thus became his wife, and is supposed to have had the same rights and privileges as other wives; but if absent three nights, she was said to have annulled the contract. No young man was allowed to marry before he was fourteen, and no girl before she was twelve. A man sixty years old was not permitted to marry a woman younger than fifty; and if he was more than sixty, he could not marry a woman of fifty. Brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and cousin-germans, were not permitted to marry each other. For some time it was contrary to law for a patrician to marry a plebeian; but this continued only about five years. All alliances with women of blemished reputation, or low extraction, were considered dishonorable. No marriage of a Roman with a foreigner could be legal, unless express permission had been first obtained from the government. Cicero even reproached Anthony for marrying Fulvia, because her father was a freed-man. A law was, however, passed, by which only senators, their sons, and grandsons, were forbidden to marry a freed-woman, an actress, or the daughter of an actor. Finally the right of citizenship was granted to all inhabitants of countries belonging to the Roman empire, and the stigma attached to foreign alliances was removed. Neither sons nor daughters could marry without their father’s approbation. The mother’s consent was usually asked as a matter of propriety, though there was no legal restriction to that effect.