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The Family in Greek History

Amazon.com Price:  $32.13 (as of 03/05/2019 06:54 PST- Details)

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Description

The circle of relatives, Cynthia Patterson demonstrates, played a key role in the political changes that mark the history of ancient Greece. From the archaic society portrayed in Homer and Hesiod to the Hellenistic age, the private world of the circle of relatives and household was once integral with and essential to the civic realm.

Early Greek society was once rooted not in clans but in individual households, and a man’s or woman’s place in the larger community was once decided by relationships within those households. The development of the city-state did not result in loss of the circle of relatives’s power and authority, Patterson argues; quite, the protection of household relationships was once crucial element of early public law. The interaction of civic and circle of relatives concerns in classical Athens is neatly articulated by the examples of marriage and adultery laws. In law courts and in theater performances, violation of marital relationships was once presented as a public danger, the adulterer as a sexual thief. This is an understanding that fits the Athenian concept of the city as the highest type of circle of relatives. The suppression of the cities with the ascendancy of Alexander’s empire led to a new resolution of the relationship between private and non-private authority: the concept that of a community of households, which is clearly exemplified in Menander’s plays. Undercutting common interpretations of Greek experience as evolving from clan to patriarchal state, Patterson’s insightful analysis sheds new light at the role of women and men in Greek culture.

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