FAMILIA, DOMUS, ET PATER FAMILIAS: A RECONSTRUCTION OF ROMAN FAMILIAL STRUCTURE AND VALUES

By Jiahao (Lisa) Pang, ’27

Roman families have long been seen as the center of Rome’s flourishing social and political life—marriage and remarriage not only reflected the rights each gender had but also manifested the intricate political network of Rome, where marriage was often used to seek personal, financial, or social advantage. For example, the famous Roman general Julius Caesar sought to forge and stabilize his relationship with Pompey the Great—a man with distinguished political power at that time—by marrying his daughter Julia to him.

However, despite the importance of Roman families in facilitating Rome’s social and political life, they have often been misunderstood as strictly patriarchal without the broader context fully grasped or the underlying nuances examined. Therefore, this paper seeks to explain the connotations and meanings behind the Latin expressions familia, domus, and pater familias and unravel the familial structure as the Romans viewed it by examining various primary and secondary sources.

In Rome, the idea of family or household could be conveyed by the terms familia or domus. In Digest, a compiled work on the writings of Roman law, familia is defined as:

“Familiae” … et in res et in personas deducitur … iure proprio familiam dicimus plures personas, quae sunt sub unius potestate aut natura aut iure subiectae, ut puta patrem familias, matrem familias, filium familias, filiam familias quique deinceps vicem eorum sequuntur, ut puta nepotes et neptes et deinceps. Pater autem familias appellatur, qui in domo dominium habet, recteque hoc nomine appellatur, quamvis filium non habeat: non enim solam personam eius, sed et ius demonstramus: denique et pupillum patrem familias appellamus.

According to the Roma law, familia can be taken to refer to res (the things)—the physical house that the family resides in, or it can refer to the multiple persons (plures personas), including the grandsons (nepotes), granddaughters (neptes), and their successors (deinceps), connected under one ruling authority (sub unius potestate) either by nature or by law. A man was called the father of the family (pater familias) as long as he had ownership (dominium) over the household, even if he did not have children.

Familia, therefore, refers to a lineage of family heritage under the leadership of the male figure of the household. Women married through free marriage usually are still treated as part of her father’s familia, rather than her husband’s, but in a marriage with manus, where the person and property of a woman transfer “from the control of her father or brother to the authority of her husband,” the woman will be incorporated into the familia of her husband’s. The ambiguity of a woman’s position regarding the familia also makes the word more associated with agnatic lineage.

In contrast to familia, domus was used to refer to the entire household, including the wife, associated slaves, wet nurses caring for infants, and pedagogues who educated the children and instructed them on skills and proper manners. It also included ancestors and descendants of the household, making the term more extensive and inclusive than familias. This is substantiated in Cicero’s De Officiis, where he discussed citizens’ moral obligations: “Principes sint patria et parentes … proximi liberi totaque domus”—the foremost being the country and parents, followed by children and the entire domus. Here, domus was used to include all extended household members, and it would make no sense if it referred to the nuclear family or the agnatic lineage again.

More intriguingly, domus was directly correlated with a man’s prestige, social recognition, and political standing. For example, when Cicero rallied the Senate against Mark Antony, whom he regarded as a threat to the Roman Republic, he brought to light the fact that Antony had no house in a time where ownership of housing was commonly taken as granted: “Quae autem domus? Suam enim quisque domum tum optinebant, nec erat usquam tua” (i.e., But what is your house? For everyone possessed his own home at that time, but yours was not anywhere.) The ownership of domus can be interpreted as a fundamental mark of social status, honor, and decency. Thus, the absence of such will be considered a loss of power basis and a disadvantage against the politician in a political setting.

Domus was also associated with religious reverence and sanctity. Contaminating or destroying houses and the “deos patrios, aras, focos, larem suum familiarem” (ancestral gods, altars, hearths, household gods) inside were highly inappropriate and disrespectful to the divinity in the Roman standard. The act became even more repulsive, considering how the Romans viewed domus as the last refuge and the most fundamental source of emotional support. On the battlefield, generals also employed this familial sentiment to inspire soldiers— “the Romans were asked to fight for patria domusque” (fatherland and home), further manifesting how domus moved beyond from a physical housing or a group of nuclear and extended family members and embodied more arbitrary and nuanced connotations like glory, decency, sanctity, and belonging. It connected the Roman people and excited their spirits.

No matter familia or domus, the fatherly figure was always imbued with the highest importance as he coordinated familial life, and his reputation was tied closely to his household and how he managed it. The term pater familias, which many viewed as a symbol of Rome’s rigid and oppressive patriarchy, referred to the estate owner and was used to identify property rights and ownership, which was unrelated to personal relationships within the family. For example, when defining what accounts for a forced entry, a domus (the house, household) was identified as “omnem habitationem, in qua pater familias habitat” (every residence in which the father of the family lives). A piece of furniture, similarly, was defined as “domesticum patris familiae instrumentum” (a domestic instrument of the father of the family). Therefore, in its legal setting, pater familias was mainly used to define objects of the house or the house itself in relation to the fatherly figure. This clarification of property ownership made it easier to identify if illegal acts like theft, robbery, and spoliation of estates arose.

In a non-legal setting, a pater familias was identified by his virtue and manner rather than sheer dominant power. He was the man “who pastures well and sows well … experienced in cultivation, building, and keeping accounts;” he should be generous and selfless, striving to leave better and more significant legacies for the descendants as articulated by Seneca, “Agamus bonum patrem familiae; faciamus ampliora, quae accepimus. Maior ista hereditas a me ad posteros transeat” (i.e., Let us act as the good father of the house; let us make larger what we receive. Let that greater patrimony pass from me to my descendents).

When associated with slave management, an ideal pater familias took care of all the slaves put in his household the same way he took care of his children—with paternal love. He should not discern his affection but instead embraced the slaves and children as one unit; those acting as despots upon the slaves, on the other hand, would never consider themselves to be called by that name. Pater familias became a symbol of equality and grace where the fatherly figure showed respect to all members of the house no matter where they were in the social hierarchy.

Similarly, a mater familias, in its non-legal setting, was also grounded by mores—morality. She is the one “quae non inhoneste vixit. Matrem enim familias a ceteris feminis mores discernunt atque separant; proinde nihil intererit, nupta sit an vidua, ingenua sit an libertina; nam neque nuptiae neque natales faciunt matrem familias, sed boni mores.” A materfamilias, therefore, should be a sexually respectable woman living honorably and honestly (non inhoneste vixit), no matter whether being married or not, freed or not. Ultimately, pater familias and materfamilias, in their respective non-legal setting, both express the Romans’ expectations and guidelines on honorable and respectable living instead of used to show coercion or forceful dominance over other family members.

In conclusion, through analyzing secondary sources by social historians substantialized and enriched by primary sources, this essay aims to explain the difference between connotations of familias and domus, though two both refer to family and household in general. The prior underscored agnatic heredity, while the latter encompassed the entire household with extended family members and was imbued with more arbitrary sentiments like religious sanctity, belonging, and patriotism. More importantly, this essay clarifies how pater familias, commonly misused to show Rome’s oppressive patriarchal structure, was mainly associated with property identification. Lastly, the analysis of non-legal uses of pater familias and mater familias offers a snippet of the core Roman values like responsibility, sense of duty, benevolence, and honor of decent living.

The Roman family had long been misunderstood as oppressive due to a lack of examination of how specific words were used in Roman connotations. While it is true that Rome is a patriarchal society, the extent of its patriarchy and oppression is uncertain and cannot be proven by terms like pater familias. Therefore, it is crucial to view the Roman familial life through their perspectives rather than the modern standard and to be aware of biases and limitations in modern interpretations. With closer introspection, the Roman family structure and different related terms turn out to be much more nuanced and complicated than what people have envisioned. Still, questions like the legal definition of mater familias and the relation and distinction between a familia and a gens (clan, tribe) are puzzling and indefinite, deserving to be examined and validated by future studies.

References

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Cicero, De Officiis

Cicero, Orationes Philippicae

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Saller, Richard P. “‘Familia, Domus’, and the Roman Conception of the Family.” Phoenix 38, no. 4 (1984): 336–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/1088380.

Saller, Richard P. “Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household.” Classical Philology 94, no. 2 (1999): 182–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/270558.

Seneca, Epistulae

Theodous Mommsen, Paulus Krueger et al (ed.) Iustiniani Digesta