Encyclopedia of society and culture in the ancient world ( PDFDrive ) 505

454 family: Greece class Celtic husbands had to pay a bride-price to the family of the bride The 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 They stopped allowing marriages between close relatives, such as cousins, and discouraged unmarried couples from living together Divorce was common among ancient Europeans 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 smothering her infant Ancient people had no effective 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 effective doctors Ancient Europeans did not understand the mechanisms of birth and had few useful treatments to offer mothers They could instruct women on breathing techniques, and they spent much of their energy reassuring and encouraging the mother They 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 find a lactating woman to act as a foster mother or a wet nurse to feed the baby Ancient Europeans did not make a significant distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children Fathers acknowledged the children of concubines, though they might not grant these children the same status as their children by official 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 fields, yielding enough food to feed the immediate clan members The women and older family members handled most of the home needs, tending the fields 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; Tacitus described Germanic children as “naked and fi lthy.” The entire clan was responsible for raising all the clan’s children The relationship between uncles and nephews was especially strong; men took particular care of the sons of their sisters Children often went to live as foster children in the homes of relatives, especially their uncles Warfare was a family affair Young men learned the art of war from their fathers and uncles The men within a clan held ranks based on their skill at fighting and on their leadership 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 activities Relatives defended one another in fights; 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 insults or murders, but they also readily ended them after a suitable payment of cattle GREECE BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL No word in the ancient Greek language corresponds closely to the English word family The Greek genos (the root of such English words as genealogy and genetics) refers to a tribe, or widely extended family The fundamental unit of Greek domestic 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 economic ties The 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 The 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 female 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 often contained many members related by blood (aunts, uncles, grandparents), they were more often 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 affected inheritance and the citizen status of children Thus it was a concern of the whole community For example, in Athens during the fift 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 often involved the exchange of gifts, sometime in two directions A potential husband offered bride gifts to his potential father-in-law, which served to establish the suitor as economically and socially suitable The future fa-