Divorce has become a public act of not unfrequent occurrence. The woman, in short, is no longer under her husband's _manus_, no longer subject to the _patria potestas_, no longer under the tutelage of the _agnati_: she is protected by the State. When the law still requires her to have a _tutor_ or procurator, she can choose a stranger who becomes her servant rather than her master. Eventually even this last shadow of subjection disappears. Absolutely her own mistress, the woman may now hold property, increase her fortune, make her will, lose her virtue; but her dowry, guaranteed and kept intact by law, remains hers to the end of her life. Nevertheless, as regards succession, the woman's rights are not yet the same as the man's. It is true, that should her father die intestate, she takes an equal share with her brothers of the inheritance; but in all other cases of intestacy the nearest female agnate stands after the most distant male. The woman cannot now do any legal act for others, though this had not been forbidden previously; she cannot be a witness; she cannot stand security for the debts of others. The _Senatus-consultum Velleianum_ lays it down as a fixed rule, which, to a certain extent, has remained in force to our own days--that the woman must not undertake any obligation on behalf of others. She may alienate her possessions in others' favour, may incur a direct obligation, contract a debt, and transfer the money to others; but she cannot bind herself to pay another's debt, nor guarantee its payment. In the legislator's opinion, the infirmity of her sex leaves her enough intelligence to escape danger in assuming direct obligations, or by alienating her property, but not enough to guard her from lightly undertaking remote and indirect liabilities which are often no less serious.