That this original right was interfered with by the law of property is not denied. But here different cases are to be considered. First, whether the serf or _nativa_ is the property of the party who unites with him or her. Secondly whether the free party unite with some other owner’s serf or neif; next, whether the issue are born in wedlock or not; and lastly how far the public law and right is involved in the question of freedom and servitude. The last consideration in fact involves the first, because, under the first, except in the case of hardly intelligible neglect, marriage could never take place between two unequal parties at all: emancipation must have preceded the ceremony; while the civil law would of course rule that the ceremony itself, taking place by consent, was an act of emancipation not to be gainsaid. It is therefore with regard to third parties only that a question can arise[377]. There is no proof that such a question ever did arise among the Anglosaxons, or that it was thought needful to provide for it by law: and the earlier evidences with which this book has especially to do are either entirely silent, or so general in their expressions that we cannot decide from them upon a particular case. In fact the whole argument is reduced to the second head, viz. where one parent is the property of a third party, and where the child is born in lawful wedlock; for a child not so born is not subject to any law which binds the parents, is _nullius filius_, and can as little be injured as advantaged by the law. ----- Footnote 377: Of course (except under circumstances which the Christian clergy, and probably even the heathen priesthood,—and if neither of these, yet the universal human feeling—would condemn,) the issue of such marriage could not have been treated as unfree, during the life of the father. But a question might arise after death, and on subsequent inheritance by third parties. And cases might occur where the public right rendered it necessary to take care that the unfree should not enjoy the advantages of freedom. -----