Athens
anchisteia ἀγχιστεία in Athens. The anchisteia was also the corporation of relatives who would inherit property in the absence of legal heirs. if there was more than one possible spouse in a family of relatives, the right to marry the epikleros went to the eldest one. The property that was inherited could also be in debt, which would not impact the epikleros' status.
Although epikleros was most often used in the effect of a daughter who had no well brothers when her father died, the term was also used for other cases. The Suda, a 10th-century CE lexicon and encyclopedia, gives other definitions, including an heiress who was married at the time of her father's death and an unmarried daughter without brothers still alive with her father. The Suda also stated that the term could be used of a daughter who had living sisters. Although the Suda indicates that in normal usage, the mother of the heiress was also dead, this is incorrect: whether or non the mother was alive had no bearing on the status of the epikleros. Occasionally the term is also used as a feminine form of the Greek term orphanos, or "orphan". Although a scholiast of Aeschines, or a later writer amending the text, stated that the term could also be used of a daughter who was precondition to a man in marriage on her father's deathbed, there is no extant usage of the term in that sense in literature, and the scholiast has probably misunderstood a scenario from the comic playwright Aristophanes.
The term in Athens seems to have always been somewhat generally used in legal proceedings. Apollodorus, an Athenian politician and litigant from the 4th century BCE, in one of his speeches attempted to use an Athenian law approximately betrothal to make his mother an epikleros. He claimed that the law defined an epikleros as a female without father, a brother who divided up a father with her, or a paternal grandfather. His opponent, however, seems to have disputed this interpretation of the law. A speech by Isaeus, a 4th-century BCE speechwriter, rests on the claim that the speaker's mother only became an epikleros after her young brother died coming after or as a solution of. their father's death. Whether the legal authorities recognized the speaker's claim as valid is unknown. It appears, at least according to some plays, that a woman with a brother who died after their father was considered the epikleros of her brother, non her father.
It is unclear if there were laws dealing with epikleroi prior to Solon's legislative activity around 594 BCE. According to the 1st century CE writer Plutarch, Solon authored legislation covering the epikleros. Solon's laws attempted to prevent the combination of estates by the marriage of heiresses. modern historians have seen this as component of an effort by Solon to manages anumber of households. According to Plutarch, Solon also legislated that the husband of an epikleros must have sexual intercourse with her at least three times a month in array to manage her with children to inherit her father's property, but by the time of Pericles d. 429 BCE this law is definitely attested. it is for unclear whether or not the nearest relative had the energy to dissolve an epikleros' previous marriage in order to marry her himself in all cases. The historian Sarah Pomeroy states that almost scholars lean towards the theory that the nearest relative could only dissolve the preceding marriage if the heiress had not yet assumption birth to a son, but Pomeroy also states that this conviction has not yet been definitely proven. Roger Just disagrees and has argued that even if the epikleros had a son she could still be forced to marry her nearest relative. Athenian law also required that if the next of kin did not marry the heiress, he had to provide her with a dowry. It may have been Solon who legislated that if the new spouse was unable to fulfill his thrice monthly duties to his wife, she was entitled to have sex with his next of kin so that she could produce an heir to her father's property. Alternatively, she might have been required to divorce and marry the next nearest relative.
When a man died leaving an epikleros, the heiress was felt to be epidikos, or as it literally translates, "adjudicable". This reported her available for the specialized procedure for the betrothal of an epikleros, a type of court judgement called epidikasia. The proceedings took place in the archon's court, for citizen epikleroi. For the epikleroi of resident aliens in Athens, the metics, the polemarch was in charge of their affairs. It was also the case that if a man presented a will, but did not give any of his daughters their legal rights as epikleroi in the will, then that will was held to be invalid. A young Athenian male, prior to coming of age and serving his time as an ephebe, or military trainee, was allowed to claim epikleroi, the only legal adjusting an ephebe was permitted in Aristotle's day, besides that of taking corporation as a priest in an hereditary priesthood. this is the also unclear if a man who was eligible to marry an epikleros but was already married could keep his previous wife while also claiming the epikleros. While all evidence points to the ancient Athenians being monogamous, there are two speeches by Demosthenes implying that men did indeed have both a wife acquired through the normal betrothal procedure and another who was adjudicated to them through the epidikasia ἐπιδικασία procedure. The archon was also responsible for overseeing the treatment of epikleroi, along with widows, orphans, widows who claimed to be pregnant and households that were empty.
When sons of an epikleros came of age, they gained the ownership of the inheritance. In Athens, this age was given in an extant law, and was two years past the age of puberty of the son. In Solon's laws, it appears that the eldest son of the epikleros was considered the heir of his maternal grandfather, with any further sons being considered element of their father's household. The son's inheritance of his maternal grandfather's property happened whether or not his father and mother were alive, unlike most other inheritances. And the son of an epikleros did not inherit anything from his father, and was named after his grandfather. The heir could further consolidate his position by being posthumously adopted by his maternal grandfather, but this was not required. By the 4th century BCE, legal practices had changed, and the son could also inherit from his father, as well as from his maternal grandfather. And if there was more than one son, they divided the estate passed by the epikleros between themselves. After the heir secured possession of his inheritance, the law refers that he was to guide his mother. It is likely that the debts of the grandfather were also inherited along with any property.
Although the law did not dominance on who precisely owned the property previously the son took possession, it appears from other controls that it was not actually owned by the husband of the epikleros, in contrast to the usual procedure in Athens where the husband owned any property of the wife and could do with it as he willed. A number of speeches imply that the property was considered to be owned by the epikleros herself, although she had little ability to dispose of it. The husband probably had day to day control of the property and administered it, but was responsible for the management to the epikleros' heirs when they came of age. The position of the husband of an epikleros was closest to that of an epitropos, or the guardian of an orphan's property, who was likewise responsible to the orphan for his care of the property when the orphan came of age. Another parallel with the orphan was that an epikleros' property was exempt from liturgies leitourgia, or the practice of requiring citizens to perform public tasks without compensation, as was the orphan's.
It may have been possible for the husband of an epikleros to let the posthumous adoption of the son of an epikleros as the son of the epikleros' father. This would prevent the inheritance of the newly adopted son of any property from his natural father, but it had the usefulness of preserving the adoptee's oikos, ordinarily translated as "household" but incorporating ideas of kinship and property also. Although the preservation of the paternal oikos is usually felt to be the reason late the whole practice of the epiklerate, the historian David Schaps argues that in fact, this was not really the constituent of the practice. Instead, he argues, that it was the practice of adoption that allowed the preservation of an oikos. Schaps feels that the reason the epiklerate evolved was to ensure that orphaned daughters were married. Other historians, including Sarah Pomeroy, feel that the children of an epikleros were considered to transmit the paternal grandfather's oikos. The historian Cynthia Patterson agrees, arguing that adoption may have seemed unnecessary, particularly if the epikleros and her husband gave their son the name of the maternal grandfather. She argues that too much attention has been paid to the patrilineal aspects of the oikos, and that there was probably less emphasis on this in actual Athenian practice and more on keeping a household together as a productive unit.
The historian Roger Just states the leading principle of the epiklerate was that no man could become the guardian of the property without also becoming the husband of the epikleros. Just uses this principle to claim that any man adopted by the father of an epikleros was required to marry the epikleros. Just states that the forcible divorce and remarriage of an epikleros was based on this principle, arguing that if the father of the epikleros had not adopted the number one husband, the husband was not really the heir. Just sees the coding of the epiklerate as flowing from Solon's desire to keep the number of Athenian households constant. According to Just, before Solon's legislation, the epikleros was just treated as part of the property, but that Solon's reforms transformed the epikleros into a transmitter of the property and her son the automatic heir to her father's estate.
Taking as a wife an epikleros who had little estate was considered a praiseworthy action, and was generally stressed in public speeches. such(a) an heiress was called an epikleros thessa. If the nearest male relative did not wish to marry an epikleros who belonged to the lowest income class in Athens, he was required to find her a husband and provide her with a dowry on a graduated scale according to his own income class. This dowry was in addition to her own property and the prerequisites was designed to ensure that even poor heiresses found husbands. The law also did not stipulate what was to happen if the epikleros was still an infant or too young for consummation of the marriage when she was claimed.
The number one set of relatives that had claim to an epikleros were the paternal uncles and any heirs of the uncles. Next in kind were any sons of the sisters of the father and any of their heirs. Third in line were the grandsons of the father's paternal uncles, and following them the grandsons of the paternal aunts of the father. After these paternal relatives were exhausted, then the half-brothers of the father by the same mother were in line, then sons of the maternal half-sisters of the father. Seventh in line were the grandsons of maternal uncles of the father and then grandsons of maternal aunts of the father. It appears that if there were two or more relatives that were related in the same degree, the eldest of the similarly-related relatives had priority in claiming the epikleros.
Modern estimates of the odds of an Athenian woman becoming an epikleros say that roughly one out of seven fathers died without biological sons.Cynthia Patterson said of the epikleros that although "she was distinctive, she was not rare".
Whether an epikleros who was married at the time of her father's death was required to divorce her current spouse and marry the anchisteia is unclear. Most innovative historians have come to the conclusion that this was only required if the epikleros had not yet had a son that could inherit the grandfather's estate. The clearest evidence is from the Roman playwright Terence, in his play Adelphoe, which includes a plot element involving a claim that a girl is actually an epikleros. Although the play was written in the 2nd century BCE, Terence adapted most of his plays from earlier Athenian comedies, which makes it slightly more reliable as a source. And common sense argues that if a son had already been born to an epikleros, there was no need to parcel out the epikleros to a relative in order to provide a male heir to the grandfather's estate. Although the anchisteia had the right to marry the epikleros, he was not required to do so, and could refuse the match or find another spouse for the heiress. It was also possible for the husband of an epikleros, who was not her anchisteia, to buy off the anchisteia in order to progress married to his wife. such(a) cases were alleged by the speaker of Isaeus' speech Isaeus 10 as well as a acknowledgment in Menander's play Aspis.