class. Celtic husbands had to pay a bride-price to the family of
the bride. Th e bride kept a portion of this bride-price, which
was considered her property while she was married. If the
marriage ended through the husband’s fault, the woman kept
her portion of the bride-price. If the wife were to blame for
the end of the marriage, the husband took the property back.
Celtic women were allowed to reject prospective husbands
and were not forced to marry men they did not want.
As Christianity spread through Europe in the 300s and
400s, Europeans adopted some Christian marital practices.
Th ey stopped allowing marriages between close relatives,
such as cousins, and discouraged unmarried couples from
living together. Divorce was common among ancient Euro-
peans and carried no social stigma. A woman was allowed
to divorce her husband if he failed to support her, lied to her,
struck her, became impotent, or slept with another woman.
A man could divorce his wife for being unfaithful, stealing,
shaming him, performing an abortion on herself, or smoth-
ering her infant.
Ancient people had no eff ective means of contraception,
so women typically bore many children during their lives.
Most women gave birth assisted by female family members
or midwives; the ancient Germans and Celts did not have ef-
fective doctors. Ancient Europeans did not understand the
mechanisms of birth and had few useful treatments to off er
mothers. Th ey could instruct women on breathing techniques,
and they spent much of their energy reassuring and encour-
aging the mother. Th ey could not, however, perform surgery,
such as cesarean sections, without killing the woman. Many
women and infants died in childbirth. If a newborn’s mother
died, the father quickly had to fi nd a lactating woman to act
as a foster mother or a wet nurse to feed the baby.
Ancient Europeans did not make a signifi cant distinc-
tion between legitimate and illegitimate children. Fathers
acknowledged the children of concubines, though they
might not grant these children the same status as their chil-
dren by offi cial wives. Some ancient Europeans practiced
infanticide, abandoning or killing newborn infants they
did not want to raise. During peacetime Celts and Germans
lived in small settlements containing several houses and
surrounded by farmed fi elds, yielding enough food to feed
the immediate clan members. Th e women and older fam-
ily members handled most of the home needs, tending the
fi elds and cattle.
Children grew up among many relatives who all lived
close to one another. Each German household was headed by
a man who had power over the other members; he decided
who would live where, who would marry whom, and which
infants to raise. Children were not heavily supervised; Taci-
tus described Germanic children as “naked and fi lthy.” Th e
entire clan was responsible for raising all the clan’s children.
Th e relationship between uncles and nephews was especially
strong; men took particular care of the sons of their sisters.
Children oft en went to live as foster children in the homes of
relatives, especially their uncles.
Warfare was a family aff air. Young men learned the art
of war from their fathers and uncles. Th e men within a clan
held ranks based on their skill at fi ghting and on their leader-
ship ability. Family members stood by one another in battle
and were bound to avenge the deaths of kinsmen. Chiefs
would choose young male relatives to march next to them
everywhere, both during battles and in more peaceable ac-
tivities. Relatives defended one another in fi ghts; young men
who allowed their older male relatives or chiefs to die were
dishonored. Wives and children were expected to cheer for
their men as they marched to battle and to treat their men’s
wounds. Family honor was extremely important. European
peoples readily entered into feuds with other clans over in-
sults or murders, but they also readily ended them aft er a
suitable payment of cattle.GREECE
BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL
No word in the ancient Greek language corresponds closely
to the English word family. Th e Greek genos (the root of such
English words as genealogy and genetics) refers to a tribe, or
widely extended family. Th e fundamental unit of Greek do-
mestic life was the oikos, or “household,” consisting of all the
people who lived together. Some were bound by kinship, but
others, such as slaves, were bound by social, legal, or eco-
nomic ties.
Th e legal and traditional head of the oikos was the senior
man. He was the kurios, the legal lord of the household, with
power over and responsibility for all its members. Th e senior
woman of the household, usually the wife of the kurios but
sometimes his mother or sister, tended to have day-to-day
responsibility for the food supply and cooking, making and
mending clothing, arranging for domestic chores, caring for
infants, educating the younger male children and all the fe-
male children, and training and disciplining the slaves.
Households tended to be patrilocal, meaning that when
a man and woman married, the woman moved into the
man’s household. Consequently, while the household oft en
contained many members related by blood (aunts, uncles,
grandparents), they were more oft en related to the man of the
house than to the woman. Marriage involved the transfer of a
woman from one kurios to another, usually from her father to
her new husband. In most Greek communities laws governed
this process, because the institution of marriage aff ected in-
heritance and the citizen status of children. Th us it was a con-
cern of the whole community. For example, in Athens during
the fi ft h century b.c.e. the law forbade marriage between
an Athenian citizen man and the daughter of a noncitizen.
(Women did not formally enjoy citizenship, even under the
democratic constitution of Athens.)
Marriage oft en involved the exchange of gift s, sometime
in two directions. A potential husband off ered bride gift s
to his potential father-in-law, which served to establish the
suitor as economically and socially suitable. Th e future fa-454 family: Greece