Note 129 — LIFE OF CAIUS MARIUS.

A divorce at Rome was effected by the husband or wife giving a written notice. In the time of Cicero, at least, either party might effect the divorce. If the divorce was owing to the adultery of the wife, the husband was entitled to retain a part of the marriage-portion; a sixth, according to Ulpian (Frag. vi.). The marriage-portion or Dos (which Plutarch translates by the Greek word φέρνη) was that property which on the occasion of a woman's marriage was transferred to the husband by the woman or by another, for the purpose of enabling the husband to bear the additional burden of a wife and family. All the woman's property which did not become dos, remained her own, except in one of the forms of marriage (conventio in manum), when, pursuant to the nature of the union by which the wife came into her husband's power and assumed towards him the relation of a daughter, all her property became her husband's; as is distinctly asserted by Cicero (Topica, 4; compare Ulpian, Frag. xix. 18). As the dos was given to the husband for a particular purpose, it was consistent that it should be returned when the marriage was dissolved. The means of recovering the dos was by action. The liability to restore the dos would be one check on the husband lightly separating from his wife. When Cicero's brother Quintus divorced his wife Pomponia, he had a good deal of trouble in finding means to return her portion. (Cicero, Ad Attic. xiv. 13). The law of dos comprised a great number of rules, and is a difficult subject. Rein (Das Römische Privatrecht, p. 204) has given a sketch of the Roman Law of Divorce that is useful to scholars; and he has in another place (p. 193, &c.) treated of the Law of Dos. It is difficult to avoid, error in stating anything briefly on the subject of Divorce and Dos.