Marriage, law and inheritance

[Cesco]

First of all we must distinguish between two types of marriage: marriage "with manus", by wich women litterally swiched family, and marriage "without manus", in wich instead she reamined in her father's family...normally a woman wasn't a persona sui iuris (legal person), so, the only wealth wich she could had brought to her housband would only had been her dowry...but, if the woman was an orphan and she didn't have any male parents, then she would had been sui iuris, a legal person, and she could have received her father's legacy. Then, with a marriage with manus, she would have brought this legacy to her housband's patrimonium, while with a marriage without manus, housband's and woman's estate would had stay separate...so a wealthy woman, usually, would had preferred a marriage without manus!

I hope i've been helpfull...the argoument is complex, and of course, as Mark said, during roman histrory there were many changes...if you are interested you could buy a roman right manual...here in Italy all law major have a course on this argoument...after all, a lot of modern institution comes from roman right.