Roman "mores" idealised a married daughter's relationship to her father as deferential and obedient, even at her husband's expense. "Deference" was not always absolute. After arranging his daughter's first two marriages, Marcus Tullius Cicero disapproved — rightly, as it turned out — of her choice to marry Dolabella, but found himself unable to prevent it. A daughter kept her own birth-family name ("nomen") for life; and although children usually took the father's name, some might take their mother's family name as part of theirs. In the early Empire, the legal standing of daughters differed little, if at all, from that of sons; either could inherit a share of the family estate if their father died intestate.