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The pater familias, also written as paterfamilias (pl.: patres familias), [1] was the head of a Roman family. [2] The pater familias was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his extended family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate".
Ara Pacis showing the imperial family of Augustus Gold glass portrait of husband and wife (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro). The ancient Roman family was a complex social structure, based mainly on the nuclear family, but also included various combinations of other members, such as extended family members, household slaves, and freed slaves.
paterfamilias: father of the family The head of household, for purposes of considering the rights and responsibilities thereof. (Civil law) bonus paterfamilias: a standard of care equivalent to the common law ordinary reasonable man. Other degrees of care are: diligens paterfamilias - higher standard of care, greater diligence;
In Roman law, status describes a person's legal status. The individual could be a Roman citizen (status civitatis), unlike foreigners; or he could be free (status libertatis), unlike slaves; or he could have a certain position in a Roman family (status familiae) either as head of the family (pater familias), or as a lower member (filii familias).
These observances were meant to strengthen the mutual obligations and protective ties between the living and the dead and were a lawful duty of the paterfamilias (head of the family). [4] Parentalia concluded on 21 February in the midnight rites of Feralia, when the paterfamilias addressed the malevolent, destructive aspects of his Manes.
Roman women could own, inherit, and control property as citizens, and therefore could exercise prerogatives of the paterfamilias pertaining to ownership and inheritance. [2] They played an increasingly significant role in succession and the inheritance of property from the 2nd century BC through the 2nd century AD, [ 3 ] but as an instrument ...
In Roman law, the term bonus pater familias ("good family father") refers to a standard of care, analogous to that of the reasonable man in the common law. [1] In Spanish law, the term used is a direct translation ("un buen padre de familia"), and used in the Spanish Código Civil. [2] It is also used in Latin American countries. [3]
Economic differentiation saw a small number of families accumulate most of the wealth in Rome, thus giving way to the creation of the patrician and plebeian classes. [2] After this initial distinction, however, the divide between patrician and plebeian families was strictly hereditary, based on social status.