Lawful divorce was relatively informal; the wife simply took back her dowry and left her husband's house. Roman men had always held the right to divorce their wives; a "pater familias" could order the divorce of any couple under his "manus". According to the historian Valerius Maximus, divorces were taking place by 604 BCE or earlier, and the early Republican law code of the Twelve Tables provided for it. Divorce was socially acceptable if carried out within social norms ("mos maiorum"). By the time of Cicero and Julius Caesar, divorce was relatively common and "shame-free," the subject of gossip rather than a social disgrace. Valerius says that Lucius Annius was disapproved of because he divorced his wife without consulting his friends; that is, he undertook the action for his own purposes and without considering its effects on his social network ("amicitia" and "clientela"). The censors of 307 BCE thus expelled him from the Senate for moral turpitude.