The conditions of marriage, however, were somewhat complicated, as it was always necessary to secure the consent of three persons before a girl of the higher class could go to the altar in nuptial array. These three persons were her father or her guardian, her lord and the king. It was Hugo who likened the feudal system to a continually ascending pyramid with the king at the very summit, and that interminable chain of interdependence is well illustrated in the present case. Suppose the father, brother, or other guardian had decided upon a suitable husband for the daughter of the house, it was necessary that he should first gain the consent of that feudal lord to whom he gave allegiance, and when this had been obtained, the king himself must give his royal sanction to the match. Nor was this all, for a feudal law said that any lord can compel any woman among his dependants to marry a man of his own choosing after she has reached the age of twelve. Furthermore, there was in existence a most cruel, barbarous, and repulsive practice which gave any feudal lord a right to the first enjoyment of the person of the bride of one of his vassals. As Legouve has so aptly expressed it: _Les jeunes gens payaient de leur corps en allant a la guerre, les jeunes filles en allant a l'autel._ Divorce was a very simple matter at this time so far as the husband was concerned, for he it was who could repudiate his wife, disown her, and send her from his door for almost any reason, real or false. In earlier times, at the epoch when the liberty of the citizen was the pride of Rome, marriage almost languished there on account of the misuse of divorce, and both men and women were allowed to profit by the laxity of the laws on this subject. Seneca said, in one instance: "That Roman woman counts her years, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of her husbands." Juvenal reports a Roman freedman as saying to his wife: "Leave the house at once and forever! You blow your nose too frequently. I desire a wife with a dry nose." When Christianity appeared, then, the marriage tie was held in slight consideration, and it was only after many centuries and by slow degrees that its sanctity was recognized, and its rights respected. While, under the Roman law, both men and women had been able to get a divorce with the same ease, the feudal idea, which gave all power into the hands of the men, made divorce an easy thing for the men alone, but this was hardly an improvement, as the marriage relation still lacked stability.