Sentence:  &#91;[https://books.google.com/books?id=6PYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA568 page 568, column 2]&#93; There were certain sacred rites ("sacra gentilitia") which belonged to a <WSD>gens</WSD>, to the observance of which all the members of a <WSD>gens</WSD>, 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 <WSD>gens</WSD>, that is, when he was adrogated, adopted, or even emancipated; for adrogation, adoption, and emancipation were accompanied by a diminutio capitis. ... &#91;[https://books.google.com/books?id=6PYGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA568 page 569, column 2]&#93; 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 <WSD>gens</WSD> were synonymous; and thus we find the expressions <WSD>gens</WSD> and patricii constantly united. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  (Q899409)(en-etym-N-historical) A legally defined unit of Roman society, being a collection of people related through a common ancestor by birth, marriage or adoption, possibly over many generations, and sharing the same nomen gentilicium.