(d) The rights of children were increased along with the rights of
women, particularly of younger children.

(e) The right of plebeians to intermarry with the noble families became
recognized. All of these changes we should perhaps regard as good in
themselves, but they nevertheless marked the disintegration of the
patriarchal family. The decay of the family life did not stop with these
changes, however, but went on to the decay of the family bonds
themselves.

Later Roman Family Life.--By the beginning of the Christian era the
relations between the sexes had become very loose. Men not only
frequently divorced their wives, but women frequently divorced their
husbands. Indeed, a complete revolution passed over the Roman family.
Marriage became a private contract, whereas, as we have seen, in the
beginning it was a religious bond. Many loose forms of marriage were
developed, which amounted practically to temporary marriages. In all
cases it was easy for a husband or wife to divorce each other for very
trivial causes. Among certain classes of Roman society the instability
of the family became so great that we find Seneca saying that there were
women who reckoned their years by their husbands, and Juvenal recording
one woman as having eight husbands in five years.

Women and children achieved their practical emancipation, as we would
say. Women, especially, were free to do as they saw fit. Marriages were
formed and dissolved at pleasure among certain classes, and among all
classes the instability of the family life had become very great.

Along with all this, of course, went a growth of vice. It is not too