De dotibus positiones L

is usually determined according to the measure of means and the dignity of birth. Careful account must also be taken of custom and of other children, if the father bestowing the dowry on his daughter has any others besides.

XVIII.

Moreover, dowries are usefully constituted in various ways: by tradition, by stipulation, by promise, by bare agreements, and likewise by the delegation of debtors, by release, by remission, and sometimes also by silent understanding.

XIX.

Among the persons, however, who provide a dowry, some do it voluntarily, some at times out of necessity.

XX.

A father is compelled by the magistrate primarily to constitute a dowry for his natural and legitimate daughters: since it is entirely a paternal duty to endow his offspring, lest she choose a base life with the greatest disgrace to the family.

XXI.

Furthermore, it was also decreed by Justinian that if a rich father has promised that he will give a dowry to his daughter, partly from his own goods, partly from the Aduentitia goods of the daughter, he is understood to have endowed the daughter from his own patrimony nonetheless.

XXII.

In this, however, all the Doctors almost with one mouth agree: that a father is not liable to endow a daughter who is wealthy from her own Aduentitia property. But I fear the contrary is true. For what kindness allows that those things which the mother or others contributed in their favor should be dragged into the ruin and detriment of the daughters?

XXIII.

Therefore, must it be admitted that this paternal duty is entirely perpetual? Certainly it does not seem so. For what if the daughter, not yet having reached her twenty-fifth year, has sinned, or has been heretical or ungrateful towards her father? Would she not be punished by the loss of the dowry with legal justification?