enoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an
emblem of their mystic union of mind and body. But this union on the
side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and she renounced the name
and worship of her father's house, to embrace a new servitude, decorated
only by the title of adoption, a fiction of the law, neither rational
nor elegant, bestowed on the mother of a family (her proper appellation)
the strange characters of sister to her own children, and of daughter to
her husband or master, who was invested with the plenitude of paternal
power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was approved, or
censured, or chastised; he exercised the jurisdiction of life and death;
and it was allowed, that in the cases of adultery or drunkenness, the
sentence might be properly inflicted. She acquired and inherited for
the sole profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman defined, not as a
_person_, but as a _thing_, that, if the original title were deficient,
she might be claimed, like other movables, by the use and possession
of an entire year. The inclination of the Roman husband discharged or
withheld the conjugal debt, so scrupulously exacted by the Athenian and
Jewish laws: but as polygamy was unknown, he could never admit to his
bed a fairer or a more favored partner.

After the Punic triumphs, the matrons of Rome aspired to the common
benefits of a free and opulent republic: their wishes were gratified
by the indulgence of fathers and lovers, and their ambition was
unsuccessfully resisted by the gravity of Cato the Censor. They declined
the solemnities of the old nuptials; defeated the annual prescription
by an absence of three days; and, without losing their name or
independence, subscribed the liberal and definite terms of a marriage
contract. Of their private fortunes, they communicated the use, and
secured the property: the estates of a wife could neither be alienated
nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; their mutual gifts were prohibited
by the jealousy of the laws; and the misconduct of either party might
afford, under another name, a future subject for an action of theft.
To this loose and voluntary compact, religious and civil rights were no
longer essential; and, between persons of a similar rank, the apparent
community of life was allowed as sufficient evidence of their nuptials.
The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians, who derived all
spiritual grace from the prayers of the faithful and the bene