Roman Law
In Roman law, agnati were persons related through males only, as opposed to cognati. Agnation was founded on the idea of the family held together by the patria potestas; cognatio involves simply the modern idea of kindred.
In Roman times, all citizens were divided by gens (clan) and familia (sept), determined on a purely patrilineal basis, in the same way as the modern inheritance of surnames. (The gens was the larger unit, and was divided into several familiae: a person called "Gaius Iulius Caesar" belonged to the Julian gens and the Caesar family.)
In the early Republic, inheritance could only occur within the family, and was therefore purely agnatic. Women were largely excluded from inheritance until the Middle Republic, but suffered a legal setback in the passage of the Lex Voconia in 169 BC. This was however evaded by careful planning, and by 42 BC, many women had inherited large wealth.
In Imperial times, the system favoring patrilineal inheritance was changed by the Praetorian edict, giving paternal and maternal relatives equal rights.
Read more about this topic: Patrilineality
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