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 chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 509 grace from the prayers of the faithful and the benediction of the priest or bishop. The origin, validity, and duties of the holy institution were regulated by the tradition of the synagogue, the precepts of the gospel, and the canons of general or pro- vincial synods ; m and the conscience of the Christians was awed by the decrees and censures of their ecclesiastical rulers. Yet the magistrates of Justinian were not subject to the au- thority of the church : the emperor consulted the unbelieving civilians of antiquity, and the choice of matrimonial laws in the Code and Pandects is directed by the earthly motives of justice, policy, and the natural freedom of both sexes. 123 Besides the agreement of the parties, the essence of every Liberty rational contract, the Eoman marriage required the previous of divorce approbation of the parents. A father might be forced by some recent laws to supply the wants of a mature daughter; but even his insanity was not generally allowed to supersede the necessity of his consent. The causes of the dissolution of matri- mony have varied among the Eomans ; 124 but the most solemn sacrament, the confarreation itself, might always be done away by rites of a contrary tendency. In the first ages, the father of [piffan-ea- 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 conveni- ence 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 123 For the system of Jewish and Catholic matrimony, see Selden (Uxor Ebraica, Opp. vol. ii. p. 529-860), Bingham (Christian Antiquities, 1. xxii.), and Chardon (Hist, des Sacremens, torn. vi.). 133 The civil laws of marriage are exposed in the Institutes (1. i. tit. x.), the Pandects (1. xxiii. xxiv. xxv.), and the Code (1. v.) ; but, as the title de ritu nuptiarum is yet imperfect, we are obliged to explore the fragments of Ulpian (tit. ix. p. 590, 591), and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum (tit. xvi. p. 790, 791), with the Notes of Pithceus and Schulting. They find, in the commentary of Servius (on the 1st Georgia and the 4th iEneid), two curious passages. 124 According to Plutarch (p. 57), Romulus allowed only three grounds of a divorce — drunkenness [leg. poisoning her children ; (pap/xaKtia rfuvuv], adultery, and false keys. Otherwise, the husband who abused his supremacy forfeited half his goods to the wife, and half to the goddess Ceres, and offered a sacrifice (with the remainder ?) to the terrestrial deities. This strange law was either imaginary or transient. [Life of Romulus, o. 22.]