_Marriage and Divorce._--The family is the unit of the social system; and at the hearthstone all civilization begins. The loosening of the domestic ties is the beginning of the dissolution of the state; and whatever weakens the nuptial bonds, tends to destroy the moral fiber of society. The degradation of women and the destruction of domestic purity were the first signs of decay in Roman life. In the early ages of the republic, marriage was regarded not only as a contract, but as a sacrament as well. Connubial fidelity was sacredly maintained. Matrons of the type of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, were objects of national pride and affection. The spirit of desperation which caused the father of Virginia to plunge a butcher's knife into the chaste and innocent heart of his child to save her from the lust of Appius Claudius, was a tragic illustration of the almost universal Roman respect for virtue in the age of the Tarquins. To such an extent were the marital relations venerated by the early Romans that we are assured by Dionysius that five hundred and twenty years had passed before a single divorce was granted. Carvilius Ruga, the name of the first Roman to procure a divorce, has been handed down to us.[155] If we are to believe Döllinger, the abandonment of the policy of lifelong devotion to the marriage relation and the inauguration of the system of divorce were due not to the faults of the men but to the dangerous and licentious qualities of the Roman women. In connection with the divorce of Carvilius Ruga, he discusses a widespread conspiracy of Roman wives to poison their husbands. Several of these husbands fell victims to this plot; and, as punishment for the crime, twenty married women were forced to take the poison which they had themselves prepared, and were thus put to death. And, about a half century after this divorce, several wives of distinguished Romans were discovered to be participants in the bacchanalian orgies. From all these things, Döllinger infers that the Roman men began to tire of their wives and to seek legal separation from them.[156] But, whatever the cause, the marriage tie was so easily severed during the latter years of the republic, that divorce was granted on the slightest pretext. Q. Antistius Vetus divorced his wife because she was talking familiarly and confidentially to one of his freedmen. The wife of C. Sulpicius imprudently entered the street without a veil, and her husband secured a divorce on that ground. P. Sempronius Sophus put away his wife for going to the theater without his knowledge. Cicero divorced his first wife that he might marry a younger and wealthier woman; and because this second one did not exhibit sufficient sorrow at the death of his daughter, Tullia, he repudiated her.