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The Roman father, with his monopoly of property rights and power of life and death over his children, has been prominent in the formulation of the concept of patriarchy in European thought. However, the severe, authoritarian image, based on legal rules and legends, provides, according to Professor Saller, a misleading view of relations between the generations in Roman families. Starting from a demographic analysis, aided by computer simulation of the kinship universe, he shows how the family changed through a Roman's life course, leaving many children fatherless. Examination of the Roman language, exempla, and symbolic behaviour of family relations reveals the mutuality of family obligation within the larger household in which children and slaves were differentiated by status marked by the whip. The concerned, loving father appears as a contrast to the exploitative master. An understanding of demography and cultural values, in turn, yields insights into the use of the sophisticated Roman legal institutions of inheritance, guardianship, and dowry for the transmission of patrimony essential to the continuity of family status. This book contains much of importance to scholars and students of ancient history and classics, and also to those whose interests lie in the field of historical demography.
List of contents
1. Introduction: approaches to the history of the Roman family; Part I. Roman Life Course and Kinship: Biology and Culture: 2. Roman patterns of death, marriage and birth; 3. Simulations of Roman family and kinship; Part II. Roman Family and Culture: Definitions and Norms: 4. Familia and domus: defining and representing the Roman family and household; 5. Pietas and patria potestas: obligation and power in the Roman household; 6. Whips and words: discipline and punishment in the Roman household; Part III. The Devolution of Property in the Roman Family: 7. Strategies of succession in Roman families; 8. Guardianship of Roman children; 9. Dowries and daughters in Rome; 10. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Summary
This innovative study of the patriarchy belies the accepted notion of the father figure as tyrannical and exploitative.
