The Law of Ancient Athens

Chapter 5. Marriage and Dowry

137 Chapter 5 Marriage and Dowry Handbooks: J. H. Lipsius, Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren (Leipzig 1905–­ 15) 468–­ 99; A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens (Oxford 1968–­ 71) 1.1–­ 60, 296–­ 303; D. M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (Ithaca, NY 1978) 84–­ 89; S. C. Todd, The Shape of Athenian Law (Oxford 1993) 204–­ 16; E. Cantarella, “Gender, Sexuality, and Law,” and A. Maffi, “Family and Property Law,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law, ed. M. Gagarin-­D. Cohen (Cambridge 2005) 236–­53, 254–­66. Studies: L. Beauchet, Histoire du droit privé de la république athénienne (Paris 1897) 1.1–­ 398; H. J. Wolff, “Marriage Law and Family Organisation in Ancient Athens,” Traditio 2 (1944) 43–­ 95; idem, “Προίξ,” in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. XXIII, 1 (Stuttgart 1957) coll. 133–­ 70; W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (Ithaca, NY 1968) 100–­ 113; S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (New York 1975) 62–­ 68; J. E. Karnezis, “The Law of Engye in Demosthenes XLVI. 18, 20, 22,” Apollinaris 49 (1976) 278–­ 85; D. M. Schaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh 1979); J. M. Modrzejewski, “La structure juridique du mariage grec,” in Symposion 1979, ed. P. Dimakis (Köln 1983) 37–­ 71; V. J. Rosivach, “Aphairesis and Apoleipsis: A Study of the Sources,” RIDA ser. 3 vol. 31 (1984) 193–­ 230; D. M. MacDowell, “The Oikos in Athenian Law,” CQ 39 (1989) 10–­ 21; L. Foxhall, “Household, Gender and Property in Classical Athens,” CQ 39 (1989) 22–­ 44; R. Just, Women in Athenian Law and Life (London 1989) 40–­ 75; R. Sealey, Women and Law in Classical Greece (Chapel Hill 1990) 12–­ 49; E. M. Harris, “Apotimema: Athenian Terminology for Real Security in Leases and Dowry Arrangements,” CQ 43 (1993) 73–­ 95 (republished with addenda in idem, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens: Essays on Law, Society, and Politics [Cambridge 2006] 207–­39); L. Cohn-­Haft, “Divorce in Classical Athens,” JHS 115 (1995) 1–­ 14; C. B. Patterson, The Family in Greek History (Cambridge, MA 1998) 107–­ 14; 138 • the law of ancient athens R. V. Cudjoe, The Social and Legal Position of Widows and Orphans in Classical Athens (Athens 2010). The basic social unit of the Athenian polis was the oikos (household), which, at least in its ideal form, corresponded approximately to the modern nuclear family and was headed by an adult male kyrios (“lord, master, [man in] authority”; plural kyrioi). (The word oikos can also designate the “estate” of a decedent, on which see chapter 7.) The kyrios exercised legal control and guardianship over his dependents, typically his wife, minor sons, and unmarried daughters. When a son reached adulthood, he became his own kyrios, and when he married , he became kyrios of his wife, of the new oikos formed by the marriage, and of any children it produced. Women, however, were never legally independent persons but were always subject to a kyrios. From birth to marriage, a woman’s kyrios was her father. If he died, a guardian had to be appointed to serve as her kyrios; normally this would be the father’s heir, in the first instance his son and her brother (e.g., 83, 88). The kyrios of a married woman was her husband (e.g., 90–­92), but even when a woman was married, her kyrios in the natal line retained some vestigial authority, as seen in his right to compel a divorce (101, 102). When divorce occurred, the kyrios in the natal line resumed control over the woman (e.g., 101); when a husband died leaving a wife and a son—­ or, possibly , a daughter—­ the wife might either return to her natal household, and thus to her kyrios in the natal line, or come under the power of a new kyrios (see below). In Classical Athens—­ and in Archaic Athens, at least from the time of Solon—­marriage was achieved in one of two ways: by engyê and ekdosis (pledge and delivery: the subject of this chapter) or by epidikasia (adjudication: treated in chapter 7, in connection with the law of succession). In the context of marriage, engyê (etymologically “a thing placed in the hand,” hence “a pledge,” marital or other) was a contract of betrothal between the kyrios of the bride—­ the consent of the bride herself was not legally relevant—­ and the groom. For the marriage to be complete and...