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'.

[Unam Sanctam]

But indirectly it is propaganda, since the Left has a major campaign to "redefine" the family to include all kinds of variable forms of living arrangements.

[gcruse]

It's been that way for the last forty years or so.

[Yeti]

Homo-propaganda.

Beat me to it.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

How many of us actuall remember living in a home with three blood generations?

My wife's parents live a mile down the road from us -- my daughter stays there as much as she's at our house. My parents just retired and are five miles away. Not to mention that two of my wife's 3 sisters live in town. Not exactly the same thing, but pretty close.

[tbpiper]

I've seen it once or twice before and suspect it's intentional- the agenda being to eliminate all Christian references from our daily lives.

I like to define it as:

CE = Christian Era
BCE = Before the Christian Era

It's fun to exasperate the enemy.

[longtermmemmory]

By extended family are talking about grandparents and inlaws in the same house?

It is not just hispanics.

(not exactly on point, but My Big Fat Greek Wedding did display the truth of the grandmother living in the house)

[Burkeman1]

I don't think so- it is just history- if anything family bonds were far tighter in Roman times and loyatly to the family was seen as a primary virtue. The core of a Roman family was the "nuclear" unit obviously- but in order to survive families had to include as many "supporters" as they could. Life was short and brutal and the bigger the family- the more protection you enjoyed. This is a far cry from accepting "Gay marriage" which Romans would have thought preposterous.

[Snuffington]

Odd spin on this. I know something about the previous ideas about the Roman family, and this fits easily within. Sure it may provide some more solid evidence to support it. And it may elevate the importance of certain relationships. But it's definitely not a major change.

Methinks I sense the hand of the "progressives" cooking up something related to this.

[SolutionsOnly]

Not at the universities I atttended

[longtermmemmory]

I know of one Greek father who gave his blessing to a marrige based on the fact the future son in law was going to be living close.

I think newlyweds need a liiiitle distance in the begining.

[donmeaker]

There is no year Zero. The year of the supposed birth was the year 1CE. the year before that was 1 BCE.

Part of the reason why one doesnt use BC and AD is because the monk who did the calculation made a mistake. It was a tough piece of work because he was after the fact trying to make sense of all the partial years where the end of one emperors life was the same year as the first year of the next emperor. We are still finding out emperors who ruled briefly, or ruled while another emperor ruled.

By using BCE and CE you date it back to the Herod the Great. The gospel record relates the birth to Herod the great (4 BC) in Matthew, to the great census (6AD) with Mark and John not taking a position.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Actually, the origins of CE/BCE are Jewish scholarship with its use started at least in the 19th Century. Since Jews consider Jesus neither "the anointed one" or "Our Lord," it is considered inappropriate to use those terms. The use spread through academia, particularly through Jewish scholars in it.

It may be P.C. now, but it wasn't a recently invented academic term.

[Snuffington]

I'm reading Colleen McCullough's The First Man In Rome. Good book.

An understatement. It's an amazing book. And astonishingly faithful to history (allowing for the fact that a lot of the action takes place in areas where we have no direct historical ecords). Every time I thought I found a historical error in it, I went back to historical sources and found she was right and my own recollection was faulty.

Read the whole series.

[SolutionsOnly]

***" CE = Christian Era
BCE = Before the Christian Era"**

Very good! I'm with you on that!

[Yeti]

You talk about the lifestyle of 0.1% of a civilization that was decadent on the verge of collapse as if it were the norm of the day, or any other day. And this article talks as if we could draw some generalizations from that.

Pah! ~

[donmeaker]

I am a practicing Roman pagan, and live with my exwife, her husband, and two children with one on the way. We do not practice polyandry/polygamy, but family chores are split. It is practical, and I recommend it.

[gcruse]

See #32. It has been the case in Britian for as long as I can remember.

[Burkeman1]

"Decadent"? Get over the Caligula movies and the lifestyles of the Emporers you see on the History Channel- the men who built the Roman Empire were not perfect but neither were they wine slushing hedonists. And it was hardly .01 percent of the population. Roman Soldiers were free Citizens at the time of Ceaser and that was a heck of a lot of families. This was the system- and it is hardly unique to Roman civiliazation- the greater or extended family- was the norm for most of human history. Our little families now- in which it is a miracle if we know our paternal Great Grandmother's maiden name have not even a tenth of the strength of a middle class ancient Roman family in which every member of the family could trace back their line for hundreds of years and worshipped and respected their ancestors.

Ask an ancient Roman if two "gays" could bet married and he wouldn't even know what the heck you were talking about as "Gay" wasn't even a concept. Two men "marrying"? He wouldn't even understand you and think you were crazy.

It is our time in which we entertain this idiocy- not theirs.

[ffusco]

I don't see the connection from extended family to gay marriage, but I hardly call this discovery groundbreaking. It is well known that the Roman family included adopted slaves and other domestic help. Also Roman concepts of marriage were remarkably similar to ours, including such customs as the wedding ring worn on the middle finger of the left hand and carrying the bride over the threshold.