Jane F. Gardner

“Pomponius’ revealing choice of words (D. 1.6.9.1): ‘In public matters, the son in power is regarded as equivalent to a paterfamilias.’ The Romans knew perfectly well that a magistrate with a living father was not really a paterfamilias. This resort to a legal fiction to justify his exercise of authority seems to reveal an underlying, probably ancient, concept of citizenship in which the citizens, in the fullest sense of the word, were those who alone were entitled to transact independently and on a basis of equality in matters both public and private with other citizens—in other words, the patres, heads of household.”
― Jane F. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen

“in early Rome and for much of the Republic, women were commonly married with manus; that is, they passed from the power of their fathers into that of their husbands (who certainly could not be held liable for obligations contracted while a woman was under another’s power), or even, if unmarried at their fathers’ death, became briefly sui iuris and then passed into power again; remarriage of widows was also regular.”
― Jane F. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen