As is natural, we also meet with the same phenomena in the history of the family, from which the civil law is to a great extent derived. In fact, whoever contemplates the primitive Roman family, at once recognises it as the basis upon which the future juridical and political greatness of Rome was erected. The family is sacred; the father is absolute master of the goods, the liberty and the life both of his wife and of his children. He is priest, judge, supreme arbiter: wife, children, and grandchildren form with him a single joint society, one legal entity of which he is the representative. The woman may be bartered away, killed, or sold in execution; freed by marriage from the despotic control of her father, she at once falls under that of her husband; her legal incapacity lasts through her whole life. But primitive customs so temper this harsh law that we find no other people of antiquity so observant of the sanctity of family, or showing so much respect to woman. Matrimony is styled "consortium omnis vitæ, divini et humani iuris communicatio." Divorce on the part of the husband (_repudium_) is not forbidden by law, but any man who repudiates his wife is dishonoured by the Censor, excommunicated by the priest, and for a period of five centuries few cases of repudiation are recorded. In ancient Greece some traces of oriental polygamy are still discernible, but in Italy monogamy is coeval with Rome itself. Natural children, as such, never rank as members of the family, but they may be legitimated. Adoption is a solemn act, the moral propriety of which is referred to the decision of the pontifex, as the guardian of the sanctity of the family, and is thus submitted to the popular sanction. The woman is never seen in places of public resort, nor does she attend popular gathering; but within doors she is _domina_, and the husband addresses her by that title. The _Atrium_ is the centre and sanctuary of the house. Here relations, friends, and strangers meet together; here stand the domestic hearth, the altar dedicated to the _Lares_, and all those objects which the family holds sacred: the nuptial coach, the ancestral likenesses moulded in wax from the faces of the dead, the matron's rock and spindle, the chest containing the household records and monies. All these possessions are entrusted to the care and superintendence of the mother of the family, who, together with her husband, sacrifices to the gods and assists him in the management of the common patrimony: she directs all domestic work, and watches over the education of her children. In the annals and legends of Rome the name of some heroine, such as Virginia or Lucretia, is indissolubly linked with the chief glories of the Eternal City. It is not so in Greece. In instituting and sanctifying the family, the Romans laid the foundation-stone of the Capitol. But to maintain this primitive nucleus of Roman society firm and compact, the law must always watch with