Family Life in Ancient Greece: Wives, Roles, Kids, Laws

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MARRIED LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE


courtship scene

As the years wore on, married life lost some of its appeal. One Roman magistrate described marriage as "legalized hardship" and the historian Plautus once said to his wife: "Enough is enough, woman. Save your voice. You'll need it to nag me tomorrow." Marriages who often arranged and men sought satisfaction with courtesans or male lovers. On Marriage, the Greek comic poet Susarion wrote (c. 440 B.C.): “Hear, O ye people! Susarion says this, the son of Philinus, the Megarian, of Tripodiscus: women are an evil; and yet, my countrymen, one cannot set up house without evil; for to be married or not to be marries is alike bad. [Source: Mitchell Carroll, Greek Women, (Philadelphia: Rittenhouse Press, 1908), pp. 96-103, 166-175, 210-212, 224, 250, 256-260, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

The lyric poet Theognis wrote (c. 550 B.C.): “Rams and asses, Cyrnus, and horses, we choose of good breed, and wish them to have good pedigrees; but a noble man does not hesitate to wed a baseborn girl if she bring him much money; nor does a noble woman refuse to be the wife of a base but wealthy man, but she chooses the rich instead of the noble. For they honor money; and the noble weds the baseborn, and the base the highborn; wealth has mixed the race. So, do not wonder, Polypaides, that the race of the citizens deteriorates, for the bad is mixed with the good.”

In Men and Women, Xenophon (c.428-c.354 B.C.) wrote: "She was not yet fifteen years old when she came to me, and up to that time she had lived in leading-strings, seeing, hearing and saying as little as possible. If when she came she knew no more than how, when given wool, to turn out a cloak, and had seen only how the spinning is given out to the maids, is not that as much as could be expected? For in control of her appetite, Socrates, she had been excellently trained. [Source: Xenophon (c.428-c.354 B.C.), On Men and Women, from Oikonomikos, c. 370 B.C., William Stearns Davis, ed., “Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources,” 2 Vols., (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-1913), I: 265-271, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Hellenistic World, Fordham University; Xenophon, an Athenian born 431 B.C., was a pupil of Socrates who marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move on and settling in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.]

“"Well, Socrates, as soon as I found her docile and sufficiently domesticated to carry on conversation, I questioned her to this effect: Tell me, dear, have you realized for what reason I took you and your parents gave you to me? For it is obvious to you, I am sure, that we should have had no difficulty in finding someone else to share our beds. But I for myself and your parents for you considered who was the best partner of home and children that we could get. My choice fell on you, and your parents, it appears, chose me as the best they could find. Now if God grants us children, we will then think out how we shall best train them. For one of the blessings in which we shall share is the acquisition of the very best of allies and the very best of support in old age; but at present we share in this our home. For I am paying into the common stock all that I have, and you have put in all that you brought with you. And we are not to reckon up which of us has actually contributed the greater amount, but we should know of a surety that the one who proves the better partner makes the more valuable contribution.'

“"God from the first adapted the woman's nature, I think, to the indoor and man's to the outdoor tasks and cares. For he made the man"s body and mind more capable of enduring cold and heat, and journeys and campaigns; and therefore imposed on him the outdoor tasks. To the woman, since he has made her body less capable of such endurance, I take it that God has assigned the indoor tasks. And knowing that he had created in the woman and had imposed on her the nourishment of the infants, he meted out to her a larger portion of affection for new-born babes than to the man. And since he imposed on the woman the protection of the stores also, knowing that for protection a fearful disposition is no disadvantage, God meted out a larger share of fear to the woman than to the man; and knowing that he who deals with the outdoor tasks will have to be their defender against any wrong-doer, he meted out to him again a larger share of courage. But because both must give and take, he granted to both impartially memory and attention; and so you could not distinguish whether the male or the female sex has the larger share of these. Thus, to be woman it is more honorable to stay indoors than to abide in the fields, but to the man it is unseemly rather to stay indoors than to attend to the work outside.

“"Thus your duty will be to remain indoors and send out those servants whose work is outside, and superintend those who are to work indoors, and watch over so much as is to be kept in store, and take care that the sum laid by for a year be not spent in a month. And when wool is brought to you, you must see that cloaks are made for those that want them. You must see too that the dry corn is in good condition for making food.

Children in Ancient Greece

The Greeks seemed to be very fond of young children. In ancient Greek art they were depicted as children doing children things not as mini adults as was the case with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Infants were often depicted in works of art and lyricists wrote poems about being woken up in the middle of the night and taking care of a crying baby. Archaeologists in Athens uncovered a ceramic "potty" and an urn showing a child sitting on the potty shaking a rattle; apparently the rattle was to show he was done.

On a socio-economic and spiritual level, it was important for Greeks to have children. People who died unmarried and childless were thought to have tormented and unresolved souls which could come back to haunt relatives. Children were also seen as insurance policies for old age; it was their responsibility to take care of their parents when they got old. To pay respects to the older generation, children were often named after their grandparents in a ceremony in which the infant's mother ran around a hearth with the infant in her arms ten days after the birth. [Source: "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum,||]

Rites of passage included three-year-old children being given their first jug, from which they had their first taste of wine, and older children taking their toys to a temple to be consecrated signifying the official end of their childhood.

Ancient Greek Men and Married Life


Upper class Greek men have been characterized as creatures who worked out in gym in the morning and discussed philosophy and democracy in the afternoon. Aristotle wrote that men were more perfect embodiments of human beings than women and it was natural that they live longer. Priam of Troy had 60 children.

The husband was very seldom at home; public life, professional duties, gymnastics, social intercourse, kept him from his family during the greater part of the day; at meals they met together, except when the husband had invited guests, and then the wife had to withdraw into retirement. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

As a rule, husband and wife hardly knew each other before marriage; it was not till afterwards that it was possible to discover whether their characters were suited to one another, and then it often turned out that these were quite incompatible. Then they went their own ways, or else jarred and quarrelled. Sometimes a sensible man succeeded in educating and raising to his own level a really intelligent wife, to whom he could communicate his plans and interests, and thus make her his partner in the true sense of the word; but this was the exception, and, as a rule, the spheres of husband and wife remained distinct.

It was a very common thing for married men to visit hetaerae (courtesan or mistress) or enter into love intrigues with slaves; and, as a rule, the wives shut their eyes to it, so long as some regard was shown for appearances. If a married man were to take an hetaera into his own house, that would be a ground of divorce; but unmarried men very often kept mistresses, and the relation between them sometimes closely resembled marriage. Supposing a man were to neglect his own family too much through this intercourse, or, by spending his money in this way, to inflict an injury on them, the wife, if she possessed the full rights of citizenship, had the right to enter a complaint. Improper language in the presence of women was not permitted, and no stranger was allowed to enter the women’s apartments during the absence of the husband. The children were bound to the most absolute obedience and reverence to both father and mother.

Wives in Ancient Greece

The Athenian regarded his wife as a subordinate being, who would bear him children and keep his house in order, but was incapable of rising beyond this sphere. A woman must keep silence about all political matters, and, as a rule, she was not even acquainted with her husband’s private affairs. A woman’s sphere was supposed to be the household, and when the family and the number of slaves was large, this charge required a good deal of strength and attention. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]


Spartan woman giving a shield to her son

The life of Athenian women was entirely devoted to domestic affairs. The part of the house set aside for the wife and children, and afterwards for the grown-up daughters and the female slaves, was generally separate from the rest of the dwelling; and a Greek writer says that, as the door which separates the women’s apartments from the rest of the house is the boundary set for a maiden, so the door which shuts the house off from the street must be the boundary for the wife. We must not, however, suppose that Greek women were entirely shut off from publicity.

The wives of poorer citizens, whose circumstances were, of course, quite different from those of the upper classes, went out of doors often enough. Some were compelled to do so by their occupation, and others, who had few or no slaves at their disposal, were obliged to go out every day to purchase food and other necessaries of life.

Home Life of Women in Ancient Greece

María José Noain wrote in National Geographic History: Within the home, women occupied the gynaeceum, a room exclusively for women. Representations of the gynaeceum appear on funerary stelae and ceramics. Women were in charge of the domestic sphere, and one of their main tasks was spinning and weaving. Many homes had their own loom. Archaeologists have uncovered a large number of epinetra, thigh guards that were used by women while working with wool. Women would rest the semicylindrical piece of wood or ceramic on one leg to avoid staining their clothing with lanolin as they carded wool. Beautifully decorated epinetra were popular wedding gifts; many epinetra bore the head of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.[Source María José Noain, National Geographic History, September 29, 2022]

The women of the house were also in charge of taking care of the children. The education of girls and young boys was the responsibility of the women, although the boys passed into the hands of a pedagogue after a certain age. Music, typically in the form of playing the lyre, was part of a girl’s education. Women also played a key role in funerary rituals for their families. They prepared the body by anointing and dressing it, and they would form part of the funeral procession.

The preparation of food likewise required the housewife’s direction, though the master of the house, or in large establishments a trusted steward, attended to the marketing. Two small terracottas from Cyprus illustrate the making of bread by very primitive methods. In the first, the woman at the left is winnowing grain with a sieve, which she holds, and a winnowing-fan shaped like a shovel, which lies by her side. The other woman (whose head is unfortunately missing) is grinding the corn on a saddle-quern; she draws the upper millstone back and forth over the lower, which is provided with side boards to prevent the meal from falling off — a hard day’s work, one would say. The other terracotta represents a primitive method of baking bread. A clay oven like a huge bowl was built up by hand in a convenient place. The usual fuel, dried grasses, was placed in and around it and after the oven became heated and the fire had died down, the housewife set the flat loaves around the inside to bake. [Source: “The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans”, Helen McClees Ph.D, Gilliss Press, 1924]

Another task often represented on vases is the drawing and carrying of water. In many places the public well-houses were the principal source of supply, as the piping of water into dwellings was unusual in Greece until Roman times. A hydria shows a group of women carrying[38] away their jars on their heads from a public well-house.

It was very common for women to fetch water from the public wells, and to have a little chat there; but in rich houses this duty of fetching the water naturally fell to the slaves. We find allusions to these expeditions to the well in legends and in real life; and they are often represented on monuments, especially vase paintings. One vase gives an example of the kind taken from a vase painting in the antique style. On the left we see the well, surmounted by a Doric portico; the water is flowing from a lion’s mouth into a jug placed beneath it; the woman who has come to fill her vessel stands waiting beside it. On the right we see other women conversing in pairs; two have already filled their jars, and are carrying them on their heads, supported by a little cushion, according to the pretty custom which still prevails widely in the south; the vessels of the two others have not yet been filled, as we can tell from their position. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

Upper Class Wives in Ancient Greece

Women of the better classes only went out attended by a servant or slave, and then but seldom. A respectable woman stayed at home as much as possible; in fact, the symbol of domestic life was a tortoise, a creature which never leaves its house, and was regarded as an attribute of Aphrodite Urania. In consequence, the women liked to linger by the windows of the upper storey, the one generally used for their apartments, in order to look down on the street, which afforded many women the only entertainment and change they had in the day’s occupations. There were no common meetings for them as there were for men. They visited one another occasionally, and there were a few festivals in the year to which they went without the men, and then the proceedings seem to have been very lively, as for instance, at the Thesmophoria. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]

The women drove in their finest clothes to the Eleusinian celebrations, and they also took part in the Panathenaea, on which occasion the daughters of the resident foreigners carried their chairs and sunshades behind them. In general, it appears as though more liberty had been gradually granted women in the matter of appearance in public, though this liberty did not extend in Greece as far as at Alexandria in the time of the Ptolemies, when Theocritus, in one of his idylls, represents two citizens’ wives, attended by their servants, penetrating into the densest crowd on the occasion of the Festival of Adonis. The manifold contradictions which we find in the ancient writers regarding the public appearance of women which have called forth so many various opinions among the learned of the present day, must be attributed in part to differences of period and, in part, to differences of locality.

Notwithstanding these numerous domestic occupations, the women seem to have had sufficient time to devote to their appearance and hygiene. In spite of the few opportunities they had of appearing elegantly dressed before strange men, or their own friends, Greek women seem to have been no exception to their sex in their fondness for dress and fine clothes.Considerable attention was devoted to the care of the body. Washing and bathing were, of course, very common. Scenes from the bath are often represented on monuments; especially we often find in sculpture or painting representations of Aphrodite, or some beautiful mortal, stooping down while a maid pours water over her back from a jar. In the vase picture next to which a scene from a bath is depicted, one woman is pouring water into a basin, while another has disrobed, and is arranging her hair before a mirror. We must suppose the locality of these scenes to have been a special bathroom, which was always found in the better class of houses on the lower storey.

In Athens, and probably more or less throughout the Greek world, a woman’s life was rather monotonous. Ladies did not go out unattended, and indeed were not expected to go out at all without good reason. A wife did not receive her husband’s guests or take part in his social life; but women were included in family gatherings such as weddings and dinners after the birth of children, they made visits to women relatives and friends, and shared in the frequent religious festivals, which at Athens included the theatre. In the earlier vase paintings there are comparatively few figures of women, and such as appear are usually goddesses or accessory persons in mythical scenes; but with the gradual change to subjects taken from every-day life in the later sixth and the early fifth century, we begin to see women about their usual occupations, or in groups talking with each other or with men. Much of the later Athenian pottery is decorated with charming scenes from the life of women, showing them with their children, busy with embroidery, or playing with pets. The younger ones seem to have enjoyed some games which we have relegated to childhood, such as spinning tops. [Source: “The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans”, Helen McClees Ph.D, Gilliss Press, 1924]

Ancient Greek Writers on Wives

“On Wives and Hetairai ” “Demosthenes wrote (c. 350 B.C.): “We take a hetaira for our pleasure, a concubine for daily attention to our physical wants, a wife to give us legitimate children and a respected house.”“Thukydides wrote in “Pericles' Dictum on Women” (c. 395 B.C.): “The best wife is the one of whom the least is said, either of good or evil.” Philemon wrote: “A good wife's duty 'tis... not to command, but to obey her spouse; most mischievous a wife who rules her husband.” [Source: Mitchell Carroll, Greek Women, (Philadelphia: Rittenhouse Press, 1908), pp. 96-103, 166-175, 210-212, 224, 250, 256-260]

On “Hipparete, Wife of Alkibiades,” who lived in the 5th century B.C.: Plutarch wrote: “Hipparete was a virtuous and dutiful wife, but at last growing impatient because of the outrages done to her by her husband's continual entertaining of hetaerae [courtesans], strangers as well as Athenians, she departed from him and retired to her brother's house. Alkibiades seemed not at all concerned at this, and lived on still in the same luxury; but the law required that she should deliver to the archon, in person, and not by proxy, the instrument by which she claimed a divorce; and when, in obedience thereto, she presented herself before the archon to perform this, Alkibiades came in, caught her up, and carried her home through the market place, no one daring to oppose him or to take her from him. She continued with him till her death, which happened not long after, when Alkibiades had gone to Ephesos.”


Euripides wrote in “The True-Hearted Wife” (c. 420 B.C.):
“Beauty wins not love for woman
From the yokemate of her life:
Many a one by goodness wins it;
For to each true-hearted wife,
Knit in love unto her husband,
Is Discretion's secret told.
These her gifts are:
Though her lord be all uncomely to behold,
To her heart and eyes shall he be comely,
So her wit be sound; ('Tis not eyes that judge the man;
Within is true discernment found):
Whenso'er he speaks, or holds his peace,
Shall she his sense commend,
Prompt with sweet suggestion when with speech
He fain would please a friend:
Glad she is, if aught untoward hap,
To show she feels his care:
Joy and sorrow of the husband aye
The loyal wife will share:
Yes, if you are sick,
In spirit will your wife be sick with you,
Bear the half of all your burdens---
Naught unsweet accounts she:
For with those we love
Our duty bids us taste the cup of bliss
Not alone, the cup of sorrow also---
What is love but this?”

Aristotle: On a Good Wife

On a Good Wife, Aristotle (384-323 B.C.) wrote: “A good wife should be the mistress of her home, having under her care all that is within it, according to the rules we have laid down. She should allow none to enter without her husband's knowledge, dreading above all things the gossip of gadding women, which tends to poison the soul. She alone should have knowledge of what happens within. She must exercise control of the money spent on such festivities as her husband has approved---keeping, moreover, within the limit set by law upon expenditure, dress, and ornament---and remembering that beauty depends not on costliness of raiment. Nor does abundance of gold so conduce to the praise of a woman as self-control in all that she does. This, then, is the province over which a woman should be minded to bear an orderly rule; for it seems not fitting that a man should know all that passes within the house. But in all other matters, let it be her aim to obey her husband; giving no heed to public affairs, nor having any part in arranging the marriages of her children. Rather, when the time shall come to give or receive in marriage sons or daughters, let her then hearken to her husband in all respects, and agreeing with him obey his wishes. [Source: Aristotle (384-323 B.C.), “On a Good Wife, from Oikonomikos, c. 330 B.C., “The Politics & Economics of Aristotle,” translated by Edward English Walford and John Gillies, (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1908), Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Hellenistic World, Fordham University]

“It is fitting that a woman of a well-ordered life should consider that her husband's wishes are as laws appointed for her by divine will, along with the marriage state and the fortune she shares. If she endures them with patience and gentleness, she will rule her home with ease; otherwise, not so easily. Therefore not only when her husband is in prosperity and good report must she be in agreement with him, and to render him the service he wills, but also in times of adversity. If, through sickness or fault of judgement, his good fortune fails, then must she show her quality, encouraging him ever with words of cheer and yielding him obedience in all fitting ways---only let her do nothing base or unworthy. Let her refrain from all complaint, nor charge him with the wrong, but rather attribute everything of this kind to sickness or ignorance or accidental errors. Therefore, she will serve him more assiduously than if she had been a slave bought and taken home. For he has indeed bought her with a great price--with partnership in his life and in the procreation of children....Let her bethink herself how Alcestis would never have attained such renown nor Penelope have deserved all the high praises bestowed on her had not their husbands known adversity.

“To find partners in prosperity is easy enough; but only the best women are ready to share in adversity.Such then is the pattern of the rules and ways of living which a good wife will observe. And the rules which a good husband will follow in treatment of his wife will be similar; seeing that she has entered his home like a suppliant from without, and is pledged to be the partner of his life and parenthood; and that the offspring she leaves behind her will bear the names of their parents, her name as well as his. And what could be more divine than this, or more desired by a man of sound mind, than to beget by a noble and honored wife children who shall be the most loyal supporters and discreet guardians of their parents in old age, and the preservers of the whole house? Rightly reared by father and mother, children will grow up virtuous, as those who have treated them piously and righteously deserve that they should; but parents who observe not these precepts will be losers thereby. For unless parents have given their children an example how to live, the children in their turn will be able to offer a fair and specious excuse for undutifulness. Such parents will risk being rejected by their offspring for their evil lives, and thus bring destruction upon their own heads. Therefore his wife's training should be the object of a man's unstinting care; that so far as is possible their children may spring from the noblest of stock.

“For it is only by this means that each mortal, successively produced, participates in immortality; and that petitions and prayers continue to be offered to ancestral gods. So that he who thinks lightly of this would seem also to be slighting the gods. For their sake then, in whose presence he offered sacrifice and led his wife home, promising to honor her far above all others saving his parents, a man must have care for wife and children. Now a virtuous wife is best honored when she sees that her husband is faithful to her, and has no preference for another woman; but before all others loves and trusts her and holds her as his own. And so much the more will the woman seek to be what he accounts her. If she perceives that her husband's affection for her is faithful and righteous, she too will be faithful and righteous towards him. Therefore it befits not a man of sound mind to bestow his person promiscuously, or have random intercourse with women; for otherwise the base-born will share in the rights of his lawful children, and his wife will be robbed of her honor due, and shame be attached to his sons.

“And it is fitting that he should approach his wife in honor, full of self-restraint and awe; and in his conversation with her, should use only the words of a right-minded man, suggesting only such acts as are themselves lawful and honorable. And if through ignorance she has done wrong, he should advise her of it in a courteous and modest manner. For of fear there are two kinds. The fear which virtuous and honorable sons feel towards their fathers, and loyal citizens towards right-minded rulers, has for its companions reverence and modesty; but the other kind, felt by slaves for masters and by subjects for despots who treat them with injustice and wrong, is associated with hostility and hatred. By choosing the better of all these alternatives a husband should secure the agreement, loyalty, and devotion of his wife, so that whether he himself is present or not, there may be no difference in her attitude towards him, since she realizes that they are alike guardians of the common interests; and so when he is away she may feel that to her no man is kinder or more virtuous or more truly hers than her own husband. And if the husband learns first to master himself, he will thereby become his wife's best guide in all the affairs of life, and will teach her to follow his example.”

Birth Claims in Ancient Greece

Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III wrote: In the Greco-Roman era, birth stories and genealogical claims were used to establish rights to rule and link individuals with purported ancestral grandeur. [Source: Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Assistant Professor of the New Testament, Vanguard University, The Conversation December 18, 2022]

Genealogical claims were made for important ancient founders and political leaders. For example, Ion, the founder of the Greek colonies in Asia, was considered to be a descendant of Apollo. Alexander the Great, whose empire reached from Macedonia to India, was claimed to be a son of Hercules. Caesar Augustus, who was the first Roman emperor, was proclaimed as a descendant of Apollo. And a Jewish writer named Philo who lived in the first century wrote that Abraham and the Jewish priest and prophets were born of God.

Regardless of whether these claims were accepted at the time to be true, they shaped a person’s ethnic identity, political status and claims to honor. As the Greek historian Polybius explains, the renown deeds of ancestors are “part of the heritage of posterity.”

Law Code of Gortyn (450 B.C.) on Property

The Law Code of Gortyn (450 B.C.) is the most complete surviving Greek Law code. According to the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: “In Greek tradition, Crete was an early home of law. In the 19th Century, a law code from Gortyn on Crete was discovered, dealing fully with family relations and inheritance; less fully with tools, slightly with property outside of the household relations; slightly too, with contracts; but it contains no criminal law or procedure. This (still visible) inscription is the largest document of Greek law in existence (see above for its chance survival), but from other fragments we may infer that this inscription formed but a small fraction of a great code.” [Source:Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

“VII. The father shall have power over his children and the division of the property, and the mother over her property. As long as they live, it shall not be necessary to make a division. But if a father die, the houses in the city and whatever there is in the houses in which a serf residing in the country does not live, and the sheep and the larger animals which do not belong to the serf, shall belong to the sons; but all the rest of the property shall be divided fairly, and the sons, howsoever many there be, shall receive two parts each, and the daughters one part each. The mother's property also shall be divided, in case she dies, as is written for the father's. And if there should be no property but a house, the daughters shall receive their share as is written. And if a father while living may wish to give to his married daughter, let him give according to what is written, but not more. . .

“X. As long as a father lives, no one shall purchase any of his property from a son, or take it on mortgage; but whatever the son himself may have acquired or inherited, he may sell if he will; nor shall the father sell or pledge the property of his children, whatever they have themselves acquired or succeeded to, nor the husband that of his wife, nor the son that of the mother. . . If a mother die leaving children, the father shall be trustee of the mother's property, but he shall not sell or mortgage unless the children assent, being of age; and if anyone shall otherwise purchase or take on pledge the property, it shall still belong to the children; and to the purchaser or pledgor the seller or pledgee shall pay two-fold the value in damages. But if he wed another, the children shall have control of the mother's property.

Law Code of Gortyn (450 B.C.) on Inheritance

In ancient Greece and Rome inheritance was transferred from father to oldest son. A typical household consisted of a wife, children, unmarried brothers and sisters and slaves.

According to the The Law Code of Gortyn “V. If a man die, leaving children, if his wife wish, she may marry, taking her own property and whatever her husband may have given her, according to what is written, in the presence of three witnesses of age and free. But if she carry away anything belonging to her children she shall be answerable. And if he leaves her childless, she shall have her own property and whatever she has woven, the half, and of the produce on hand in possession of the heirs, a portion, and whatever her husband has given her as is written. If a wife shall die childless, the husband shall return to her heirs her property, and whatever she has woven the half, and of the produce, if it be from her own property, the half. If a female serf be separated from a male serf while alive or in case of his death, she shall have her own property, but if she carry away anything else she shall be answerable.

“X. ...If a mother die leaving children, the father shall be trustee of the mother's property, but he shall not sell or mortgage unless the children assent, being of age; and if anyone shall otherwise purchase or take on pledge the property, it shall still belong to the children; and to the purchaser or pledgor the seller or pledgee shall pay two-fold the value in damages. But if he wed another, the children shall have control of the mother's property.

“XIV. The heiress shall marry the brother of the father, the eldest of those living; and if there be more heiresses and brothers of the father, they shall marry the eldest in succession. . . But if he do not wish to marry the heiress, the relatives of the heiress shall charge him and the judge shall order him to marry her within two months; and if he do not marry, she shall marry the next eldest. If she do not wish to marry, the heiress shall have the house and whatever is in the house, but sharing the half of the remainder, she may marry another of her tribe, and the other half shall go to the eldest. . .

“XVI. A son may give to a mother or a husband to a wife 100 staters or less, but not more; if he should give more, the relatives shall have the property. If anyone owing money, or under obligation for damages, or during the progress of a suit, should give away anything, unless the rest of his property be equal to the obligation, the gift shall be null and void. One shall not buy a man while mortgaged until the mortgagor release him. .

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024


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