Analysis Of Roman Epitaphs Alters Concept Of 'Family'

University Of Calgary ^ | 2-11-2004 | Dr Hanne Sigismund

[blam]

Analysis of Roman epitaphs alters concept of 'family'

February 11, 2004

If ancient Romans observed Family Day, their celebrations would have included wet nurses, slaves and possibly many others who had no blood relationship, according to new University of Calgary research.

A landmark analysis by classicist Dr. Hanne Sigismund Nielsen of more than 4,500 inscriptions on Roman tombstones shows that our concept of the Roman family needs to be broadened to include much more than just parents, grandparents and children.

"Roman families did not at all look like our family structure today," says Nielsen, who spent more than 10 years examining the Latin inscriptions. "Quite a few family relationships existed by choice and were not at all contained in the biological family." For example, slaves were often related to their masters by choice, families frequently included foster parents or children, and wet nurses were especially honoured.

"Whereas we might say, 'He has a face only a mother could love,' the Romans would have said, 'He has a face only his wet nurse could love'," Nielsen says. The bond was so strong with wet nurses because mothers surrendered their children to them for the first three years of a child's life.

Nielsen has written a book about her research titled Roman Relationships: The Evidence of the Epitaphs, which is currently under review for publication. Although the epitaphs have been documented and compiled in reference books, until now nobody has comprehensively described and analyzed them. Nielsen assembled a database of 4,500 complete inscriptions out of a total of 40,000 epitaphs, many of which are only fragmentary.

"It's not just accidental that you put up a tombstone for someone," she points out. "These people weren't millionaires and the stonecutter charged for each letter. I think it reflects real emotions and real attachment." The reason Roman families probably included so many individuals who were unrelated by birth was because the mortality rate was extremely high. With a life expectancy of not much beyond 45, a small family unit could not have survived.

"If you were a woman and you were 15 years old, you would be married to a man who was 10-15 years older than you. Then, because you had actually succeeded in living that long, you stood a good chance of living until you were 45. In that period you would give birth to five or six children, and half of them would die."

Nielsen says the most affecting inscriptions were always related to young children. "The grief is tangible: 'Here lies So-and-so, He was such a sweet little boy.' The proximity of death was so close in those times and these families probably had other children who died - it is always very touching."

Although it's expected Nielsen's book will have a major impact within the discipline by dispelling commonly held assumptions about the epitaphs, her research also tells us something about who we are now." Because our way of understanding the world is in many ways derived from the Romans, it's important that we know something about their culture. Even if we don't care about history, we can learn something about ourselves by looking at a culture where they did some things differently."

There are comparatively few researchers specializing in Roman social history, and even fewer who work with the epitaphs. One of the assumptions that Nielsen's research dispels relates to women and marriage. "Most of the textbooks we have on Roman social history will say it was normal to demand chastity from wives and that it was generally praised everywhere in the epitaphs. But the evidence points to a different conclusion."

It wasn't until about 300 CE when Christianity began to dominate that the idea of chasteness was cited in the inscriptions. Although Roman marriages before that time were monogamous, it wasn't something that was memorialized. Before then, up to about the middle of the 3rd century, wives tended to be described as 'very dear'.

[Antoninus]

When all my uncles were coming home from WWII, we went through a spell of about 5/6 years where my great-grandfather, grandfather, parents, sister, three uncles (two unmarried, one married with a little girl) and an unmarried aunt all lived in the old family homestead. They were the best years of my childhood.

Big families are such a blessing. It's too bad that more people don't realize it.

[Little Bill]

In Rome when a slave was freed he joined the Family of his Master, thus the ianus in the last name of later Romans, meaning loosey of the family of.

[Little Bill]

I have a Greek friend whose father in law, retired, sits in his store and estimates the cash flow, to be sure that his daughter is treated correctly, strange but true.

[Devil_Anse]

Bottom line: SOMEBODY in that society was engaging in normal sexual relations, or there wouldn't have been any wet nurses, etc.--there wouldn't have been any population at all.

There are all kinds of reasons why marriage includes a pledge of fidelity to the person you marry. IMO, the number one reason it evolved that way was to prevent a man from unknowingly having the expense (not just monetary expense) of rearing another man's biological offspring. It's only fair that a person should only be obligated to expend effort on behalf of his/her own biological offspring. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with VOLUNTARILY taking care of another person's biological offspring.)

So fidelity is important to heterosexual marriages. IMO, it is less important to homosexual couplings--and oh, BROTHER, is that evident in their behavior.

So if we call homosexual pairings "marriage", then we do indeed change the nature of marriage, making fidelity less important. I mean, who cares if homos cheat on each other?

And without at least a serious attempt at fidelity, what the hell reason is there for getting married in the first place?

[blam]

"And without at least a serious attempt at fidelity, what the hell reason is there for getting married in the first place?"

Yup. With more and more people accepting that it is the responsibility of the state to care for their 'chilrun', marriage is obsolete, huh?

[Devil_Anse]

Looks that way. I mean, if we're going to live in communes, we don't need things like "moms" and "dads".

In the future, people will get babies only by picking an anonymous father (by reading his description); then people of indeterminate gender, wearing clean white lab coats, will artificially inseminate the most likely female candidates (those who pay the most money) with the semen of the chosen men. Thus, sex will also become unnecessary (although masturbation will continue--in fact, male masturbation will be more necessary than sex.) In fact, sex may even eventually become prohibited by law.

This will be a much more civilized atmosphere, since all babies will be planned with excruciating care, and men and women will no longer have to degrade themselves by touching each other.

Such a great civilization it will be!

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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