From the earliest notices we have of the Roman women we find them possessed of a definite character of remarkable strength. We often say this or that is a sign of some particular period or people; when nine times out of ten the thing we believe to be strange is in reality common to the progress of life. In Rome the position of woman would seem to have followed in orderly development that cyclic movement so beautifully defined by Havelock Ellis in the quotation I have placed at the beginning of the first section of this chapter. The patriarchal rule was already strongly established when Roman history opens; it involved the same strict subordination of woman to the one function of child-bearing that we have found in the Athenian custom. The Roman marriage law developed from exactly the same beginning as did the Greek; the woman was the property of her father first and then of her husband. The marriage ceremony might be accomplished by one or two forms, but might also be made valid without any form at all. For in regard to a woman, as in regard to other property, possession or use continued for one year gave the right of ownership to the husband. This marriage without contract or ceremony was called _usus_.[293] The form _confarreatio_, or patrician marriage, was a solemn union performed by the high Pontiff of Jupiter in the presence of ten witnesses, in which the essential act was the eating together by both the bride and bridegroom of a cake made of flour, water and salt.[294] The religious ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage. The second and most common form, was called _coemptio_, or purchase, and was really a formal sale between the father or guardian of the bride and the future husband.[295] Both these forms transferred the woman from the _potestas_ (power) of her father into the _manus_ (hand) of her husband to whom she became as a daughter, having no rights except through him, and no duties except to him. The husband even held the right of life and death over the woman and her children. It depended on his will whether a baby girl were reared or cast out to die--and the latter alternative was no doubt often chosen. As is usual under such conditions, the right of divorce was allowed to the husband and forbidden to the wife. "If you catch your wife," was the law laid down by Cato the Censor, "in an act of infidelity, you would kill her with impunity without a trial; but if she were to catch you she would not venture to touch you with a finger, and, indeed, she has no right." It is true that divorce was not frequent.[296] Monogamy was strictly enforced. At no period of Roman history are there any traces of polygamy or concubinage.[297] But such strictness of the moral code seems to have been barren in its benefit to women. The terrible right of _manus_ was vested in the husband and gave him complete power of correction over the wife. In grave cases the family tribunal had to be consulted. "Slaves and