tions given at the time of the transfer as to the
purpose for which it was made and the disposition to
be made of the property. After this had gone on
until everyone had begun to employ the proceeding,
a law of the Twelve Tables gave legal efficacy to the
oral instructions, when the form of sale was had--
and wills had come into being. A better example is to
be seen in the Roman law of marriage. The religious
marriage, which was the only one recognized by re-
ligion and hence by law, was not open to the plebeian.
In consequence he did not have his wife in manus
or his children in potestas and his household had no
standing before the law. The law was not altered.
It was not enacted that there might be marriage
without a wife in manus and a family without chil-
dren in potestas, but purchase or adverse possession
and the statute of limitations were resorted to in
order to bring the plebeian's wife into manus in an-
other way. Our own law furnishes many such in-
stances. When the Anglo-Saxon king desired to ex-
tend the protection of his peace to some one, he took
him by the hand publicly and made of him, for legal
purposes, a minister or servant, entitled to the king's
peace which attached to members of his household.
When wager of law, a simple oath backed by the
oaths of one's neighbors that this oath was clean
and unperjured, made the action of debt a worth-
less action upon simple contracts, wager of law was
not abolished but the courts found a trespass and a
breach of the king's peace in failure to perform a
promise, if only something had been given presently
in exchange for it, and thus imposed on our law of

-168-