Encyclopedia of society and culture in the ancient world ( PDFDrive ) 507

456 family: Rome her children from the first marriage Through 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., contains 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 The family was the most important unit in Roman social organization 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 The head of a family was the paterfamilias This was usually the father or grandfather of the family, who held a power called patria potestas over all his descendants, male and female The 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 The paterfamilias had to give consent for his children to marry; anything his children earned technically 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 after 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 domestic 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 often made for political or economic reasons; romantic considerations were often 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 first time around the age of 18 Men married later, in their late 20s or early 30s, after 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 flame-colored scarf and shoes The wedding took place in the bride’s father’s house After 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 There were several different types of marriage Confarreatio was the oldest style of marriage; it could be contracted 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 difficult 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 confarreatio Either partner could end the marriage simply by informing his or her spouse that the marriage was over Augustus (r 27 b.c.e–14 c.e.) introduced the practice of using written documents to prove that a wife had committed adultery, but for the most part no formal procedure was necessary to end a marriage Children usually stayed with their father after their parents divorced Roman men were often absent from the home for extended periods while they went off to wars or conducted business overseas They 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 Though they preferred biological children, they did not hesitate to adopt children from relatives 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 members or midwives, though occasionally male doctors helped with difficult labors Many women died during or after childbirth 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 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 purification 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 intercourse while they were nursing babies because it would harm their milk, so some wives hired wet nurses so that they could