As legislation usually proceeds from good judgment, its wisdom and moderation are of great assistance even in disputes which do not frequently take place. If, however, their beneficence is so great, why should it not be generally applicable to the ordinary affairs of life? For when a physician fails to administer remedies to persons who are ill and only treats such as are slightly indisposed, will not the cure of the latter always be attributed to his science and skill? Therefore, desiring to increase the dignity and majesty of the laws, We include among their provisions what custom has established up to this time with reference to two persons of unequal social rank, who, influenced by love, desire to marry (that is to say, where one is a slave and the other free), and We hereby order that when a freeman desires to marry a slave woman, he can only do so under two conditions, that is, he must either become a slave like herself, or purchase her freedom; and the price which he pays shall be considered a species of betrothal gift for the purpose of insuring the union with a person of servile status which he is about to contract. We also order that the owner of the female slave shall not act inhumanly in this matter, and if the person who marries her prefers to become a slave, they shall both be liberated at the death of their master, but if he does not wish to do this, and has not sufficient property to immediately purchase the freedom of the slave he marries, he shall be obliged to forfeit his own liberty. Still, where he serves the same master, he shall be entitled to an annual salary of two solidi, and his servitude shall only last until he has earned enough to pay the price agreed upon for the freedom of his wife, for his master shall then have no other good reason to retain him in slavery.