to an equal
partition; but a female was incapable of transmitting any legal claims;
and the _cognats_ of every rank, without excepting the dear relation of
a mother and a son, were disinherited by the Twelve Tables, as strangers
and aliens. Among the Romans _agens_ or lineage was united by a common
_name_ and domestic rites; the various _cognomens_ or _surnames_ of
Scipio, or Marcellus, distinguished from each other the subordinate
branches or families of the Cornelian or Claudian race: the default
of the _agnats_, of the same surname, was supplied by the larger
denomination of _gentiles_; and the vigilance of the laws maintained, in
the same name, the perpetual descent of religion and property. A similar
principle dictated the Voconian law, which abolished the right of female
inheritance. As long as virgins were given or sold in marriage, the
adoption of the wife extinguished the hopes of the daughter. But the
equal succession of independent matrons supported their pride and
luxury, and might transport into a foreign house the riches of
their fathers. While the maxims of Cato were revered, they tended to
perpetuate in each family a just and virtuous mediocrity: till female
blandishments insensibly triumphed; and every salutary restraint was
lost in the dissolute greatness of the republic. The rigor of the
decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the praetors. Their edicts
restored and emancipated posthumous children to the rights of nature;
and upon the failure of the _agnats_, they preferred the blood of the
_cognats_ to the name of the gentiles whose title and character were
insensibly covered with oblivion. The reciprocal inheritance of mothers
and sons was established in the Tertullian and Orphitian decrees by the
humanity of the senate. A new and more impartial order was introduced by
the Novels of Justinian, who affected to revive the jurisprudence of
the Twelve Tables. The lines of masculine and female kindred were
confounded: the descending, ascending, and collateral series was
accurately defined; and each degree, according tot he proximity of blood
and affection, succeeded to the vacant possessions of a Roman citizen.

The order of succession is regulated by nature, or at least by the
general and permanent reason of the lawgiver: but this order is
frequently violated by the arbitrary and partial _wills_, which prolong
the dominion of the testator beyond the grave. In the simple state
of society, this last use