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.
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