this sacrifice from the husband's estate was to come from, as the two moieties had already been disposed of. This strange law must either have been imaginary or transient.

On the case of Ruga this elegant writer notices the lavish eulogiums which the rigidness of their laws, and the exemplary abstinence of the people, have received for the absence of any case in which this tempting privilege of Divorce was indulged for a space of so many years; but he considers the fact as speaking an equivocal language; and he contends that it proves the inequality of those terms on which the connexion of husband and wife was formed, and the undue power conferred on the one, with the state of oppressed subjection of the other. "The slave, unable to renounce her tyrant; the tyrant, unwilling to relinquish his slave."* It may be remarked, however, that the story of Lucretia lends confirmation to the account of the early purity of the Roman people.

We have said, that in later times the privilege of Divorce was extended to the women, and they could sue out a sentence of separation, and live alone as well as the men. It was when the Roman matrons became

• Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. viii. p. 61.

the equal and voluntary companions of their lords, that new regulations were introduced into their civil jurisprudence, and marriage was held to be dissoluble by the abdication of either party."

In the course of a few centuries, in which the prosperity of conquest succeeded to the privations and struggles of the previous ages, and introduced corruption and profligacy in its train, this permission was enlarged to a most mischievous extent. The great crime for which separation was to be justified had multiplied in an alarming manner; for, when the Emperor Severus mounted the throne, no less than three thousand prosecutions for Adultery had been commenced, and were then pending; but, besides this, on the most trivial pretences, caprice, interest, passion, discovered daily motives (reasons they could not be

• Juvenal and Martial both allude to the possession of this power by the women. The former, in his Sat. ix. v. 74;

"Fugientem sæpe puellam

Amplexu rapui, tabulas quoque fregerat et jam
Signavit."

The latter, in his 39th Epigram, lib. x. :

"Mense Novo Jani veterem Proculeia maritum
Deseris atque jubes res sibi habere suas.”

termed) for the dissolution of the marriage union; and the separation was effected, unaccompanied by other solemnities than a mere message, or letter, sent by a slave. This was termed a renunciation, because conveyed by a nuntius, or messenger.

At first, indeed, additional circumstances were observed. It was necessary to give a Bill containing the reasons of the separation, and the tender of all the woman's goods which had been brought in marriage, (called repudium mittere,) or it was preferred in her presence, before seven witnesses, and accompanied by tearing the writings, refunding the portion, and taking away the keys. The woman was then removed from the house. These witnesses were to be Roman citizens of the age of puberty, and the Bill of Divorce was to be after a certain carmen, or form of words; "Res tuas tibi habeto, &c. item hæc," "Tuas res tibi agito: in repudiis, id est, renunciatione comprobatâ, hæc sunt verba;" but in the event of one betrothed, as in the Jewish law also, an opportunity was given of breaking off the contract, and in that case the words varied: "In sponsalibus autem discutiendis placuit renunciationem intervenire oportere, in quâ re hæc verba probata "Conditione tuâ non utor."

sunt;"

To the period of Ruga many writers assign the origin of the Roman marriage contracts, introduced, as they who trace them thither state, for the purpose of securing the portions of the women as Divorces became more frequent.

Frequent they did, indeed, become, and for the slightest causes possible. The instances which immediately occur to the classical reader amply prove this.

C. Sulpitius Gallus repudiated his wife because he had seen her abroad with her head uncovered. Q. Austilius Vetus, because his wife conversed with women of low condition. P. Sempronius Sophus, because his wife had been seen at a public show. Cæsar dismissed his wife, and alleged, when inquiry was made into the cause of it, that he would not have the wife of Cæsar even suspected of such a crime. Nero dismissed Octavia for her sterility; and Augustus put away one of his wives because he did not like her temper. Sometimes they separated when they were tired of each other. This was called a Divorce boná gratiâ; a repudium sine ullâ querela; perhaps the Consul Æmilius is an instance of this; he dismissed a handsome and fruitful wife, and would assign no reason for it. The women were equally prompt in availing them

selves of the liberty.

them is very severe.

Seneca's reflection upon
He declares, they cal-

culated their age, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of husbands they had had.*

The most ordinary causes of Divorce were, barrenness, age, disease, madness, and banishment. On Coriolanus going to his exile, when he parted with his wife, he intreated her to marry again, and to find a man happier than himself.

One kind of marriage among the Romans was not dissoluble; it was called the farracia, from marriage being the communion of far, Yea, the ordinary food of the ancient Romans.t The rest were too easily broken; and the remedies proposed for the increasing moral evils which arose in consequence, were as inadequate in their nature, as they were tardy

*" Illustres quædam ac nobiles fœminæ, non consulum numero, sed maritorum, annos suos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causâ, et nubunt repudii."

Sen. de Benef. lib. iii. Op. tom. 2. p. 418. This word exeunt, is stated to be critically accurate, as it formed part of the phraseology of the dismissal, at least, according to Juvenal:

"Collige sarcinulas, dicet libertus, et exi."

Juvenal, Sat. vi.

† Dion. Halicar. ii. 93.