In default of a testamentary guardian, the statute of the Twelve
Tables assigns the guardianship to the nearest agnates, who
are hence called statutory guardians. 1 Agnates are persons
related to one another by males, that is, through their male as-
cendants; for instance, a brother by the same father, a brother's
son, or such son's son, a father's brother, his son or son's son.
But persons related only by blood through females are not
agnates, but merely cognates. Thus the son of your father's
sister is no agnate of yours, but merely your cognate, and
vice versa; for children are member's of their father's family,
and not of your mother's. 2 It was said that the statute confers
the guardianship, in case of intestacy, on the nearest agnates;
but by intestacy here must be understood not only complete
intestacy of a person having power to appoint a testamentary
guardian, but also the mere omission to make such appointment,
and also the case of a person appointed testamentary guardian
dying in the testator's lifetime. 3 Loss of status of any kind
ordinarily extinguishes rights by agnation, for agnation is a title
of civil law. Not every kind of loss of status, however, affects
rights by cognation; because civil changes cannot affect rights
annexed to a natural title to the same extent that they can affect
those annexed to a civil one.

TITLE XVI
OF LOSS OF STATUS

Loss of status, or change in one's previous civil rights, is of
three orders, greatest, minor or intermediate, and least. 1 The
greatest loss of status is the simultaneous loss of citizenship
and freedom, exemplified in those persons who by a terrible