her children from the fi rst marriage. Th rough inscriptions
on tombs ancient Greeks would sometimes try to speak to
a dead spouse or praise them to passing strangers. One such
inscription, from Athens in the fourth century b.c.e., con-
tains a dialogue between husband and wife: “Farewell, tomb
of Melite; a good woman lies here. You loved your husband
Onesimus, and he loved you back. You were the best of wives,
and he mourns your death. You were a good wife.” And the
wife’s reply: “And farewell to you, my dearest man; love my
children.”
ROME
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Th e family was the most important unit in Roman social or-
ganization. Every Roman belonged to a family, and a person’s
ancestry was considered of great importance. Families were
tracked along male lines; children took their fathers’ names.
Romans knew the details of their mothers’ families as well.
Kinship of any sort was considered a strong bond, and family
members were expected to help their relatives when possible.
Th e head of a family was the paterfamilias. Th is was usu-
ally the father or grandfather of the family, who held a power
called patria potestas over all his descendants, male and fe-
male. Th e paterfamilias technically had the power of life or
death over his children; this power to kill children was rarely
exercised during the republic and the empire, except in the
case of newborn infants. Th e paterfamilias had to give consent
for his children to marry; anything his children earned tech-
nically belonged to him. A young man could leave the patria
potestas only if his paterfamilias freed him, either by dying or
by deliberately releasing him. A young boy could become a
paterfamilias through the death of his father, or a young man
could remain under the authority of his paterfamilias even
aft er he had become a husband and a father himself.
Girls were always under the authority of a male. A girl’s
father or paterfamilias had control over her actions until she
married, but at that point her husband gained authority over
her. If her husband died, her son or uncle or another male
relative would become paterfamilias and keep control of
the family. Roman women did, however, retain some rights.
Depending on the details of her marriage contract and do-
mestic situation, a Roman woman could retain some control
over her own dowry and could transact business on her own.
Some women ran prosperous businesses with their husbands’
consents.
Marriages were oft en made for political or economic
reasons; romantic considerations were oft en irrelevant. A
paterfamilias would decide whom a woman would marry
and would handle all arrangements of her property for her.
Young men also had to follow the desires of a paterfamilias
in choosing a bride. Roman women typically married for the
fi rst time around the age of 18. Men married later, in their late
20s or early 30s, aft er they had spent some time in military
service and had established a career. June was the most popu-
lar month for weddings. A bride dressed in a white tunic and
wore a fl ame-colored scarf and shoes. Th e wedding took place
in the bride’s father’s house. Aft er the ceremony and the feast,
the bridal party walked in procession to the groom’s house,
where the groom carried the bride over the threshold.
Th ere were several diff erent types of marriage. Con-
farreatio was the oldest style of marriage; it could be con-
tracted only between two patricians (members of the Roman
nobility), and it put the bride entirely under her husband’s
control, or manus. It was very diffi cult to dissolve through
divorce. By the time of the Roman Republic (509–27 b.c.e.)
other forms of marriage contracts that were easier to end
and that gave women more independence had become much
more common, except among priests, who were required to
marry confarreatio. A bride was expected to bring a dowry
to the marriage; this property usually remained hers if she
divorced.
Divorce was easy, unless the couple was married con-
farreatio. Either partner could end the marriage simply by
informing his or her spouse that the marriage was over. Au-
gustus (r. 27 b.c.e–14 c.e.) introduced the practice of using
written documents to prove that a wife had committed adul-
tery, but for the most part no formal procedure was necessary
to end a marriage. Children usually stayed with their father
aft er their parents divorced. Roman men were oft en absent
from the home for extended periods while they went off to
wars or conducted business overseas. Th ey expected their
wives to maintain the home while they were gone.
Romans wanted children to carry on their names and
care for them in their old age. Th ough they preferred biologi-
cal children, they did not hesitate to adopt children from rela-
tives or friends if they could not produce their own. People
sometimes adopted children for political reasons as well;
adults could even have themselves adopted if they needed a
particular name or social class for some political purpose.
Most women gave birth assisted by female family mem-
bers or midwives, though occasionally male doctors helped
with diffi cult labors. Many women died during or aft er child-
birth from bleeding, exhaustion, or infection. Many infants
also died during the birth process. If a baby survived birth,
the father or paterfamilias could decide whether to keep the
child. If he decided not to keep it, the child would be left
outside to die. Historians do not know what percentage of
Roman babies were abandoned, but it is known that people
were much more likely to expose girls, illegitimate children,
deformed infants, and the children of slaves than they were
to expose boys, legitimate children, or children of well-to-do
families. If the parents kept the child, they celebrated its birth
on its eighth day of life in a purifi cation ceremony called the
lustratio.
Mothers might breast-feed their own infants, or they
might hire wet nurses to nurse the babies for them. Many
people believed that women should not have sexual inter-
course while they were nursing babies because it would harm
their milk, so some wives hired wet nurses so that they could456 family: Rome