If the father could
subdue his own feelings, he might escape, though not the censure, at
least the chastisement of the laws; and the Roman Empire was stained
with the blood of infants, till such murders were included by
Valentinian and his colleagues in the letter and spirit of the Cornelian
law. The lessons of jurisprudence and Christianity had been insufficient
to eradicate this inhuman practice, till their gentle influence was
fortified by the terrors of capital punishment.
Experience has proved that savage are the tyrants of the female sex, and
that the condition of women is usually softened by the refinements of
social life. In the hope of a robust progeny, Lycurgus had delayed the
season of marriage: it was fixed by Numa at the tender age of twelve
years, that the Roman husband might educate to his will a pure and
obedient virgin. According to the custom of antiquity, he bought his
bride of her parents, and she fulfilled the _coemption_ by purchasing,
with three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and
household deities. A sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in
the presence of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on
the same sheepskin; they tasted a salt-cake of _far_ or rice; and this
confarreation, which denoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an
emblem of their mystic union of mind and body.
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