Pater Familias - The Roman familia

The Roman familia

The Roman household was conceived of as an economic and juridical unit or estate: familia originally meant the group of the famuli (the servi or serfs and slaves of a rural estate) living under the same roof. This meaning later expanded to indicate the familia as the basic Roman social unit, which might include the domus (house or home) but was legally distinct from it—a familia might own one or several homes. All members and properties of a familia were subject to the authority of a pater familias: his legal, social and religious position defined familia as a microcosm of the Roman state. In Roman law, the potestas of the pater familias was official but distinct from that of magistrates.

Only a Roman citizen held the status of pater familias and there could only be one holder of the office within a household. He was responsible for its well-being, reputation and legal and moral propriety. The entire familia was expected to adhere to the core principles and laws of the Twelve Tables, which the pater familias had a duty to exemplify, enjoin and if necessary enforce, so within the familia Republican law and tradition (mos maiorum) allowed him powers of life and death (vitae necisque potestas). He was also obliged to observe the constraints imposed by Roman custom and law on all potestas. His decisions should be obtained through counsel, consultation and consent within the familia—these were decisions by committee (consilium). These family consilia probably involved the most senior members of his own household—especially his wife—and if necessary his peers and seniors within his extended clan (gens).

Augustus' legislation on the morality of marriage co-opted the traditional potestas of the pater familias. Augustus was not only Rome's princeps—he was its father (pater patriae) and as such was responsible for the entire Roman familia. Rome's survival required that citizens produce children. This could not be left to individual conscience—the falling birthrate was a marker of degeneracy and self-indulgence, particularly among the elite who were supposed to set an example. The Augustan Lex Julia maritandis ordinaribus compelled marriage upon men and women within specified age ranges, and remarriage on the divorced and bereaved within certain time limits. The Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis severely penalised adulterous wives and any husbands who tolerated such behaviour. The Lex Papia Poppaea extended and modified these laws in relation to intermarriage between social classes and inheritance. Compliance was rewarded and exceptional public duty brought exemption but dictatorial compulsion was deeply unpopular and quite impractical. The laws were later softened in theory and practise, but the Imperial quaestio perpetua remained. Its public magistrates now legally over-rode the traditional rights of the family concilium and pater familias. The principate shows a clear trend towards the erosion of individual patria potestas and the increasing intrusion of the state into the juridical and executive independence of the familia under its pater.