138 THE Family. book ii. Such are the usnges and laws which we find still in force at an epocli when the gens was already enfeebled and almost destroyed. Such are the remains of this ancient institution. 2. An JiJxamination of certain Opinions that have been put forth to explain the Roman Gens, On this subject, which has long been the theme of learned controversy, several theories have been offered. Some say that the gens was nothing more than a simi- larity in name ; ' others, that the word gens designated a sort of factitious relationshij^. Still others hold that the gens was merely the expression of a relation be- tween a family which acted as patrons and other fami- lies that were clients. But none of these explanations answer to the whole series of facts, laws, and usages Avhich we have just enumerated. Another opinion, more jjlausible, is, that the gens was a political association of several families who were ori- ginally strangers to each other; and that in default of ties of blood, the city established among them an im- aginary union and a sort of religious relationship. But a first objection presents itself: If the gens is only a factitious association, how are we to explain the fact that its members inherited from each other? Why is the (jentilis preferred to the cognate? It has been seen above what the rules of succession were, and we have pointed out the close and necessary relation which religion had established between the right of inheritance and mas- ' Two passages of Cicero, TuscuL, I., IC, and Topica, 6, have tended to confuse the question. Cicero, like most of his con- temporaries, appears not to have understood what the ancient gens really was.
