In the first ages the father of a family
might sell his children, and his wife was reckoned in the number of his
children; the domestic judge might pronounce the death of the offender,
or his mercy might expel her from his bed and house; but the slavery of
the wretched female was hopeless and perpetual, unless he asserted for
his own convenience the manly prerogative of divorce. The warmest
applause has been lavished on the virtue of the Romans, who abstained
from the exercise of this tempting privilege above five hundred years;
but the same fact evinces the unequal terms of a connection in which the
slave was unable to renounce her tyrant, and the tyrant was unwilling to
relinquish his slave.
When the Roman matrons became the equal and voluntary companions of
their lords, a new jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage, like
other partnerships, might be dissolved by the abdication of one of the
associates. In three centuries of prosperity and corruption this
principle was enlarged to frequent practice and pernicious abuse.
Passion, interest, or caprice suggested daily motives for the
dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the
mandate of a freedman declared the separation; the most tender of human
connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.
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