man and a woman and a partnership of all life; a mutual sharing of laws
human and divine."[52] The power of the husband over the wife was called
_manus_; and the wife stood in the same position as a daughter.[53] No
husband was allowed to have a concubine.[54] He was bound to support his
wife adequately, look out for her interests,[55] and strictly to avenge
any insult or injury offered her[56]; any abusive treatment of the wife
by the husband was punished by an action for damages[57]. A wife was
compelled by law to go into solemn mourning for a space of ten months
upon the death of a husband[58]. During the period of mourning she was
to abstain from social banquets, jewels, and crimson and white
garments[59]. If she did not do so, she lost civil status. The emperor
Gordian, in the year 238, remitted these laws so far as solemn clothing
and other external signs of mourning above enumerated were
concerned.[60] But a husband was not compelled to do any legal mourning
for the death of his wife.[61]

The wife was, as I have said, in the power of her husband. Originally,
no doubt, this power was absolute; the husband could even put his wife
to death without a public trial. But the world was progressing, and that
during the first three centuries after Christ the power of the husband
was reduced in practice to absolute nullity I shall make clear in the
following pages. I shall, accordingly, first investigate the rights of
the wife over her dowry, that is, the right of managing her own
property.

Even from earliest times it is clear that the wife had complete control
of her dowry. The henpecked husband who is afraid of offending his
wealthy wife is a not uncommon figure in the comedies of Plautus and
Terence; and Cato the Censor growled in his usual amiable manner at the
fact that wives even in his day controlled completely their own