In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal wherever they lived, whether in the capital or the provinces.  Citizenship embraced both political and civil rights.  Political rights had reference to the right of voting in the comitia; but this was not considered the essence of citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the connubium, and commercium.  By the former the citizen could contract a valid marriage and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the paternal power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.  Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became a citizen of another State.  An unsullied reputation was required by law for a citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.

The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural law; and while they recognized slavery, they ascribed the power of masters entirely to the law and custom of nations.  Persons taken in war were considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were therefore, de facto, slaves; the children of a female slave followed the condition of their mother, and belonged to her master.  But masters could manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens with some restrictions.  After the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman died intestate his property reverted to his patron.

Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in early times equality of condition was required.  The lex Canuleia, A.U.C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and plebeians, and the lex Julia, A.U.C. 757, allowed it between freedmen and freeborn.  By the conventio in manum, a wife passed out of her family into that of her husband, who acquired all her property; without it, the woman remained in the power of her father, and retained the free disposition of her property.  Polygamy was not permitted; and relationship within certain degrees rendered the parties incapable of contracting marriage.  (These rules as to forbidden degrees have been substantially adopted in England.) Celibacy was discouraged.  Concubinage was allowed, if a man had not a wife, and provided the concubine was not the wife of another man; this heathenish custom was abrogated by Justinian.  The wife was entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained her property independent of him.  On her marriage the father gave his daughter a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which, with its usufruct during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could not alienate real estate without the wife’s consent, and on the dissolution of marriage the dos reverted to the wife.  Divorce existed in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the beginning of the empire; to check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe penalties