from PART Va - ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Family organization and practices are fundamental to an understanding of Roman society. Daily life was organized in the household, at the core of which was the family. To most Romans property and rank, or the lack of them, came through inheritance within the family. Consequently, major social developments were intimately related to family practices. The changing composition of the imperial élite, for example, must be understood in terms of reproduction, and dispersion or concentration of wealth – all basic matters of family behaviour and strategy. Furthermore, the rising new religion of Christianity partially defined itself in contrast to prevailing pagan sexual and other family mores; an understanding of Christianity therefore requires a knowledge of what went before. Moreover, since much of Roman law was concerned with family matters, the Roman family left a legacy through the law for later Europe, a legacy that continues to be felt today.
LANGUAGE AND IDEALS
A semantic discussion of the vocabulary related to family life offers a convenient starting-point for an examination of Roman conceptions and ideals of the family. Familia and domus, the two Latin words for ‘family’, had different semantic ranges and emphases from the word ‘family’ today. Ulpian (Dig. L.16.195) offers a series of definitions of familia. First, there is the res or property belonging to the head of the family (paterfamilias) – an archaic meaning rarely found in classical texts apart from the law. As for persons, familia in its narrowest sense encompassed the paterfamilias and those in his potestas, usually sons, daughters, and sons' children, including formally adopted children.
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