https://books.google.com/books?id=6PYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA568 page 568, column 2 There were certain sacred rites (sacra gentilitia) which belonged to a gens, to the observance of which all the members of a gens, as such, were bound, whether they were members by birth, adoption, or adrogation. A person was freed from the observance of such sacra, and lost the privileges connected with his gentile rites, when he lost his gens, that is, when he was adrogated, adopted, or even emancipated; for adrogation, adoption, and emancipation were accompanied by a diminutio capitis. […] https://books.google.com/books?id=6PYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA568 page 569, column 2 As the gentes were subdivisions of the three ancient tribes, the populus (in the ancient sense) alone had gentes, so that to be a patrician and to have a gens were synonymous; and thus we find the expressions gens and patricii constantly united.