Uses or Usucapion, was a form of civil marriage securing the wife more freedom than the form which held her “under his thumb” as his daughter. It was as old or even older than the Twelve Tables, and although for many centuries not considered quite as respectable a form of marriage as that in which the wife became the husband’s slave with divorce impossible, it eventually grew to be the customary form of Roman marriage. Maine.--Early History of Ancient p. Institutions. 517.