e Roman mind, which conceived of these from an essentially political
and social point of view. The purpose of marriage was, so to speak,
exterior to the pair. As untouched by any spark of the metaphysical
spirit as he was unyielding--at least in action--to every suggestion of
the philosophic; preoccupied only in enlarging and consolidating the
state of which he was master, the Roman aristocrat never regarded
matrimony and the family, just as he never regarded religion and law,
as other than instruments for political domination, as means for
increasing and establishing the power of every great family, and by
family affiliations to strengthen the association of the aristocracy,
already bound together by political interest.

For this reason, although the Roman conceded many privileges and
recognized many rights among women, he never went so far as to think
that a woman of great family could aspire to the right of choosing her
own husband. Custom, indeed, much restricted the young man also, at
least in a first marriage. The choice rested with the fathers, who
were accustomed to affiance their sons early, indeed when mere boys.
The heads of two friendly families would find themselves daily together
in the struggle of the Forum and the Comitia, or in the deliberations
of the Senate. Did the idea occur to both that their children, if
affianced then, at seven or eight years of age, might cement more
closely the union of the two families, then straightway the matter was
definitely arranged. The little girl was brought up with the idea that
some day, as soon as might be, she should marry that boy, just as for
two centuries in the famous houses of Catholic countries many of the
daughters were brought up in the expectation that one day they should
take the veil.

Every one held this Roman practice as reasonable, useful, equitable; to
no one did the idea occur that by it violence was done to the most
intimate sentiment of liberty and independence that a human being can
know. On the contrary, according to the common judgment, the
well-governing of the state was being wisely provided for, and these
alliances were destroying the seeds of discord that spontaneously
germinate in aristocracy and little by little destroy it, like those
plants sown by no man's hand, which thrive upon old walls and become
their ruin.

This is why one knows of every famous Roman personage how many wives he
had and of what family they were. The marr