TABLE IV.  PATERNAL POWER

1.  A dreadfully deformed child shall be killed quickly.

2.  If a father thrice surrender a son for sale, the son shall be free from the father.[15]

3. [To repudiate his wife her husband] shall order her to mind her own affairs, shall take [her] keys [, shall expel her].

4.  Into a legal inheritance he who has been in the womb (in utero) is admitted [, if he shall have been born].[16]

TABLE V. INHERITANCE AND GUARDIANSHIP

1.  Women shall remain under guardianship (tutela), even though they shall become of full age (perfecta aetas)[17] ... the Vestal Virgins are excepted [and] shall be free [from control].

2.  The mancipable (conveyable or movable) possessions of a woman who is under tutelage of [her] agnates[18] shall not be acquired rightfully by usucapion (long usage or long possession), save if these (possessions) by herself shall have been delivered with the sanction of [her] guardian (tutor).[19]

3.  According as a person shall have ordered regarding his property or the guardianship (tutela) of his estate, so shall be the law (ita ius esto).

4.  If a person die intestate (intestatus) and have no self-successor (suus heres), the [deceased’s] nearest male agnate shall have possession of the estate.

5.  If there be no male agnate, the [deceased’s] clansmen[20] shall have possession of the estate.

6.  To persons[21] for whom a guardian (tutor) shall not have been appointed by will (testamentum), to them [their] agnates shall be guardians.

7.  If a person be insane (furiosus), if there be not a guardian (custos) for him, rightful authority over his person and over his property shall belong to [his] agnates and [in default of these] to [his] clansmen.  If a person be a spendthrift (prodigus), he shall be prohibited from [administering his own] goods and he shall be under the guardianship (curatio) of [his] agnates.

8.  If a freedman (libertus) shall have died intestate without self-successor, [his] patron (patronus) shall take the inheritance of a Roman citizen-freedman ... from said household into said household.

9.  Items which are in the category of debts [due to or incurred by a deceased person] shall be divided [among his consuccessors] by mere operation of law (ipso iure) [in proportion] to [their] portions of the inheritance.[22]

10.  Apportionment of an estate (actio familiae erciscundae) [occurs], when coheirs (coheres) wish to withdraw from common [and equal] participation [in the inheritance].[23]

TABLE VI.  OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION

1.  When a person shall make bond (nexum) and conveyance (mancipium), according as he has specified with [his] tongue, so shall be the law (ita ius esto).