FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD 165children of the family increasingly preserved the memory of both father’s
and mother’s domus by taking both of their names. One blue- blooded
senator of the mid- second century sported no fewer than thirty- eight
names.^56
The recognition of women as links rather than as dead- ends in family
lines is one aspect of a more general change in ‘strategies of heirship’. As
pointed out earlier, any group in the population that was to be self-
perpetuating would have had to produce fi ve or six children per family in
order to overcome the devastation of high infant mortality. Parents who
gave birth to fi ve or six children had a good chance of having a male heir
survive to continue the family line and name. In many of the early modern
European aristocracies, families were large on average, thus enhancing the
chances of biological success. The incidence of death was unpredictable and
so in having large families parents ran the risk of being left with too many
surviving children and a consequent fragmentation of the patrimony. This
dilemma was resolved in several ways. A primogeniture system of inheritance
would ensure that the eldest son inherited most of the patrimony regardless
of the number of children, and so would be able to carry on the family line
at the same level of wealth and prestige. Another possibility was to discourage
marriage of all children beyond one son and one daughter, so that no
permanent fragmentation of the estate was necessary to support new family
lines.
Roman law and custom do not seem to have adopted either of these
options. The system of inheritance remained fi rmly partible among male and
female offspring. Though the will could have been used to settle the
patrimony on the eldest son, this does not seem to have happened; such, at
least, is the implication of the assumption in our sources that disherison of
a son was abnormal and a result of bad behaviour. Furthermore, all children
were supposed to get married. This expectation seems to have been fulfi lled
in the case of daughters, and to the extent that men did not marry it was not
part of a strategy to avoid initiation of additional family lines by younger
sons. During the middle Republic the lack of such strategies did not generally
put great pressure on aristocratic families: they had many children and
could hope to provide for all out of the massive infl ux of wealth into Rome
from conquest. The fl ow largely dried up under the emperors, and this,
together with social changes (e.g. much higher living standards for aristocrats
in Rome), caused many aristocrats to limit their families to just a few
children. No fi gures of any use are available for family size, but various
authors of the Principate point to a widespread belief that having large
families was unpopular on account of the expense and trouble. Pliny praised
one of his friends, Asinius Rufus, for his virtuous character, one indication
of which was his decision to have several children ‘in this age when for most
people the advantages of childlessness make even one child seem a burden’
( Ep. 4.15.3). For noble women as well, child- bearing was perceived to be
unpopular (Seneca, Cons. ad Helviam 16.3). A fragment of Musonius Rufus