Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/125

 CHAP. VIII. AUTHOKITY IN" THE FAMILY. 119 The right to emancipate — that is to say, to exclude a son from the family and the worship. The right to adopt — that is to say, to introduce a stranger to the domestic hearth. The right, at his death, of naming a guardian for his wife and children. It is necessary to remark that all these rights be. longed to the father alone, to the exclusion of all the other members of the family. The wife had not the right of divorce, at least in jMimitive times. Even when a widow, she could neither emancipate nor adopt. She was never the guardian even of her own children. In case of divorce, the children remained with the father, — even the daughters. Her children were never in her power. Her consent was not asked for the marriage of her own daughter.' II. We have seen above that property was not understood, originally, as an individual right, but as a family right. The fortune, as Plato says, formally, and as all the ancient legislators say, implicitly, belongs to the ancestors and the descendants. This property, by its very nature, could not be divided. There could be in each family but one proprietor, which was the family itself, and only one to enjoy the use of property — the father. This principle explains several peculiarities of ancient law. The property not being capable of division, and rest- ing entirely on the head of the father, neither wife nor children had the least part in it. The dotal system, and even the community of goods, were then unknown. The dowry of the wife belonged, without reserve, to the husband, who exercised over her dowry not only • Demostheites, iw^mSmZ., 40an(l 43. Gaius, I. 155. Ulpian, VIII. 8. Institutes, I. 9. Digest, I. tit. 1, 11.