Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/66

60 taught man that the conjugal union was something more than a relation of the sexes and a fleeting affection, and united man and wife by the powerful bond of the same worship and the same belief. The marriage ceremony, too, was so solemn, and produced effects so grave, that it is not surprising that these men did not think it permitted or possible to have more than one wife in each house. Such a religion could not admit of polygamy.

We can understand, too, that such a marriage was indissoluble, and that divorce was almost impossible. The Roman law did indeed permit the dissolution of the marriage by coemptio, or by usus. But the dissolu- tion of the religious marriage was very difficult. For that, a new sacred ceremony was necessary, as religion alone could separate what religion had united. The effect of the confarreatio could be destroyed only by the diffarreatio. The husband and wife who wished to separate appeared for the last time before the common hearth ; a priest and witnesses were present. As on the day of marriage, a cake of wheaten flour was presented to the husband and wife. But, instead of sharing it between them, they rejected it. Then, instead of prayers, they pronounced formulas of a strange, severe, spiteful, frightful character, a sort of malediction, by which the wife renounced the worship and gods of the husband. From that moment the religious bond was broken. The community of worship having ceased, every other common interest ceased to exist, and the marriage was dissolved.