political unit.

(3) We have therefore as a third cause the breaking up of old political
conditions. Family groups were welded into small cities and the
authority of the patriarch was destroyed. Legislation designed to meet
the new social conditions often profoundly affected the whole family
group, and weakened family bonds.

(4) The growth of divorce and of vice may be put down as a fourth cause
of the decay of the Roman family. Some may say that this was an effect
of the decay of the Roman family rather than a cause, but it was also a
cause as well as an effect, for it is a peculiarity of social life that
what is at one stage an effect reacts to become a cause at a later
stage; and this was certainly the case with the growth of divorce and
vice in Rome, in its effect upon the Roman family. Moreover, much of
this came from Greece through imitation. The family life had decayed in
Greece much earlier than it had in Rome, and when Rome conquered Greece
it annexed its vices also. While the most radical social changes do not
usually come about merely through imitation, yet the imitation of a
foreign people is frequently, in the history of a particular nation, one
of the most potent causes in bringing about social changes. It was
certainly so in the case of the growth of divorce and vice in Rome.

To sum up and to generalize: we may say that the causes of the decay of
the Roman family life were very complex, and that this is true of nearly
all important social changes. It is impossible to reduce the causes of
these changes to any single principle or set of causes. While we have
seen that changes in economic conditions were undoubtedly very
influential in bringing about the profound changes in the Roman family,
still we have no ground for regarding the economic changes as