luntary absence, she could cohabit with another
man, but must return to her husband if he came back, the children of the
second union remaining with their own father. If she had maintenance, a
breach of the marriage tie was adultery. Wilful desertion by, or exile of,
the husband dissolved the marriage, and if he came back he had no claim on
her property; possibly not on his own.

As a widow, the wife took her husband's place in the family, living on in
his house and bringing up the children. She could only remarry with
judicial consent, when the judge was bound to inventory the deceased's
estate and hand it over to her and her new husband in trust for the
children. They could not alienate a single utensil. If she did not remarry,
she lived on in her husband's house and took a child's share on the
division of his estate, when the children had grown up. She still retained
her dowry and any settlement deeded to her by her husband. This property
came to her children. If she had remarried, all her children shared equally
in her dowry, but the first husband's gift fell to his children or to her
selection among them, if so empowered.

Monogamy was the rule, and a childless wife might give her husband a maid
(who was no wife) to bear him children, who were reckoned hers. She
remained mistress of her maid and might degrade her to slavery again for
insolence, but could not sell her if she had borne her husband children. If
the wife did this, the Code did not allow the husband to take a concubine.
If she would not, he could do so. The concubine was a wife, though not of
the same rank; the first wife had no power over her. A concubine was a free
woman, was often dowered for marriage and her children were legitimate. She
could only be divorced on the same conditions as a wife. If a wife became a
chronic invalid, the husband was bound to maintain her in the home they had
made together, unless she preferred to take her dowry and go back to her
father's house; but he was free to remarry. In all these cases the children
were legitimate and legal heirs.

There was, of course, no hindrance to a man having children by a slave
girl. These children were free, in any case, and their mother could not be
sold, though she might be pledged, and she was free on her master's death.
These children could be legitimized by their father's acknowledgment before
witnesses, and were often adopted. They then ranked equally in sharing
their father's estate