In theory the Roman law required the consent of both participants; a father could not absolutely force son or daughter to marry a particular person, nor, indeed, any person at all.  But on the other hand, according to the Roman law, neither sons nor daughters were free to act independently of the father’s will, nor to possess independent property, so long as the father lived, or until he chose to “emancipate.”  It naturally follows that paternal pressure was the chief factor in determining a marriage, and only those men or women whose fathers were dead, or who had been formally freed from tutelage, were in a position absolutely to please themselves.  We need not suppose either that sons were always very amenable, or that parents were invariably self-willed and autocratic, but it is obvious that marriages based on mutual attraction must have been extremely few.  We will suppose that Silius is his own master, while Marcia has a father or a guardian still alive.

At the betrothal ceremony the friends of both houses are in attendance, a regular form of words is interchanged between Silius and the father of Marcia, a ring is given by the man to his fiancee, to be worn on the fourth finger of her left hand, and he adds some other present, most probably some form of that jewellery of which the Roman women were and still are so extraordinarily fond.  A feast naturally follows.

You would think this performance sufficiently binding, and binding no doubt it was from a moral point of view, so long as there was reasonably good behaviour on either side, or so long as neither Silius nor Marcia’s father was prepared wantonly to flout general opinion or to offend a whole connection by simply changing his mind.  On the other hand, there was no legal compulsion whatever to carry out the contract.  The Roman world knew nothing of actions for breach of promise.  If either party chose to repudiate the engagement, they were free so to do.  In that case they were said to “send back a refusal” or to “send a counter-notice.”  A family dispute, a breath of suspicion, a change of circumstances, and even an improved prospect might be sufficient excuse, or no excuse need be offered at all.

In the present instance, however, no such ugly missive passes between the house of Silius on the Caelian Hill and that of Marcius on the Aventine, the wedding takes place in due course.  It will not be in May nor in early March or June, nor on certain other dates which, for reasons mostly long forgotten, were regarded as inauspicious.  It is a social ceremony, and neither state nor priest will have anything to do with sanctioning or blessing it.  The pillars at the sides of the vestibules of both houses are wreathed with leaves and boughs, and the friends and clients of both families proceed in festal array to the house of the bride.  If Marcia is very young she has taken her playthings—­dolls and the like—­and has dedicated them to the household gods as a sign