Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/120

 114 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. has any, oi-, in default of sons, of the nearest kin- dred.' So complete is her husband's authority over her, that lie can, upon his death, designate a guardian for her, and even choose her a second husband.* To indicate the power of the husband over the wife, the Romans had a very ancient expression, which their jurisconsults have preserved ; it is the word manus. It is not easy to discover the primitive sense of this word. The commentators make it the expression of material force, as if the w'ife was placed under the brutal hand of the husband. It is quite probable that this is wrong. The power of the husband over the wife results in no wise from his superior strength. It came, like all private law, from the religious belief that placed man above woman. What proves this is, that a woman who had not been married according to the sacred rites, and who, consequently, had not been as- sociated in the worship, was not subject to the maritaJ power.^ It was marriage which created this subordi- nation, and at the same time the dignity of the wife. So true is it that the right of the strongest did not constitute the family. Let us pass to the infant. Here nature speaks for itself, loud enough. It demands that the infant shall have a protector, a guide, a master. This religion is in accord with nature ; it says that the father shall be the 82. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 25. Gains, I. 149, 155. Aulus Gellius., III. 2. Macrobius, I. 3. ^ Cicero, Topic, 14. Tacitus, Ann., IV. IG. Aulus Gellius, XVIII. G. It will be seen farther on, that, at a certain epoch, new modes of marriage were instituted, and that they had the «amo legal effects as the sacred marriage.
 * Demosthenes, 1 71 5^epA., II. ; in Aphob. Plutarch, ^AcOTts^.,
 * Demostliencs, in Aphohum ; pro Phormione.