s detailed in our constitution.

3 There is another specific kind of gift between the living, with which
the earlier jurists were quite unacquainted, and which owed its
later introduction to more recent emperors. It was called gift before
marriage, and was subject to the implied condition that it should not
be binding until the marriage had taken place; its name being due to the
fact that it was always made before the union of the parties, and could
never take place after the marriage had once been celebrated. The first
change in this matter was made by our imperial father Justin, who, as
it had been allowed to increase dowries even after marriage, issued a
constitution authorizing the increase of gifts before marriage during
the continuance of the marriage tie in cases where an increase had been
made to the dowry. The name 'gift before marriage' was, however, still
retained, though now inappropriate, because the increase was made to it
after the marriage. We, however, in our desire to perfect the law, and
to make names suit the things which they are used to denote, have by
a constitution permitted such gifts to be first made, and not merely
increased, after the celebration of the marriage, and have directed that
they shall be called gifts 'on account of' (and not 'before') marriage,
thereby assimilating them to dowries; for as dowries are not only
increased, but actually constituted, during marriage, so now gifts
on account of marriage may be not only made before the union of
the parties, but may be first made as well as increased during the
continuance of that union.

4 There was formerly too another civil mode of acquisition, namely, by
accrual, which operated in the following way: if a person who owned
a slave jointly with Titius gave him his liberty himself alone by
vindication or by testament, his share in the slave was lost, and went
to the other joint owner by accrual. But as this rule was very bad as a
precedent--for both the slave was cheated of his liberty, and the kinder
masters suffered all the loss while the harsher ones reaped all the
gain--we have deemed it necessary to suppress a usage which seemed so
odious, and have by our constitution provided a merciful remedy, by
discovering a means by which the manumitter, the other joint owner,
and the liberated slave, may all alike be benefited. Freedom, in whose
behalf even the ancient legislators clearly established many rules at
variance with the general pri