classical period practically the same state of things obtained. But as the republic of Rome drew near to its fall, the monogamic institution was still further weakened, and became little more than a contract dissoluble by will; and advantage of this fact was commonly taken. In the end, in the later days of the Empire, marriage was looked upon as so irksome that it was little resorted to, its place being supplied by intercourse with the female slaves, with the result that the population began obviously to decrease owing to the nonrearing of children.
This subject leads naturally to the consideration of the Roman familia, which consisted of wife, children, and slaves, all under the absolute power of the head of the household, or paterfamilias ; attached to this family through their relations to the paterfamilias were the clients, who, though not directly under his absolute power, were practically bound to him by economic and social ties, since he was their guardian and their protector generally. The relation of this, amidst all differences, to 47 the kinship group is clear, as well as its demarcation from the polygamic patriarchal family of the East. It must be remembered that the power of life and death, in short of jurisdiction, of the paterfamilias over all the members of the family was real and not merely formal. It will be seen therefore that the monogamic family was the lowest unit in classical society, as the Gens was in the early group-society; and also 1t must be said that the working of the transformation of personal into political society is very clearly marked by the differences between the classical family and the barbaric Gens, Curia, or Clan.
The oligarchies which became the masters of this social state, owing to the ambition of their more able members, who found their support in the democracies, were self-destructive, and before long gave way to the absolutist power which was the core of them, and their place was taken in the Greek world by the so-called Tyrannies, and in the Roman world by the Empire.