Synopses & Reviews
This book explores the practicalities, cultural assumptions, and affective possibilities of marriage during the later Republic and the Principate. It offers a fresh look at the interaction of law and reality within Roman marriage, and builds on the accumulation of legal scholarship in the field, as well as on the latest insights into Roman society. Treggiari demonstrates that marriage affected a Roman woman's social status, and that while the socio-legal effect on a man was far less striking, marriage did enable a man to father legitimate children, the main object of the institution. The study also addresses the influences on the choice of partner, behavioral norms, and motives for divorce.
Review
"Magisterial....A study of fundamental importance that is required reading for anyone who teachers or writes on Roman society and for historians of the family in other ages as well....A superb culmination of recent advances in knowledge and an obvious point of departure for future work on this theme."--American Historical Review
"Treggiari, with her superb command of the literary and legal sources, now offers us a grand vision of attitudes towards marriage in law and practice among the upper classes....A book that all teaching Roman social history will want....A most impressive achievement."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"She handles with expert assurance all the sources....Indeed, it is her close and continuous use of this mind of Roman legal thought that gives her work its special character and value....This is a major contribution, indispensable to any collection dealing with ancient history, classical literature, or the social sciences."--Choice
"It is a book that in the present age cannot be surpassed."--The Historian
"A significant advance has now been achieved with the appearance of Treggiari's masterly study. Treggiari is also thoroughly conversant with the vast array of literary evidence. On points of detail, whether of major or minor significance, the book tends toward the encyclopaedic and will serve many as a work of reference more than as a book to read from cover to cover.There is much to fascinate as well as to enlighten."--Journal of Roman Studies
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. An Anglo-Indian Family
2. An Imperial Marriage
3. Strachey Childhoods
4. Schooldays
5. University Life
6. Modern Marriages
7. Single Life
8. Sibling Ties
9. Careers
10. Gender and Sexuality
11. A Feminist Family
12. Continuity and Change
13. A Literary Family
14. Final Years
15. Afterword