Pater familias

The pater familias, also sum as paterfamilias plural patres familias, was the head of a Roman family. The pater familias was the oldest well male in a household, as well as could legally exemplification autocratic rule over his extended family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the kind estate". The realize is archaic in Latin, preserving the old genitive ending in see Latin declension, whereas in classical Latin the normal first declension genitive singular ending was . The pater familias always had to be a Roman citizen.

familia. In Roman generation law, the term "Patria potestas" Latin: “power of a father” returned to this concept. He held legal privilege over the property of the familia, as well as varying levels of direction over his dependents: these subjected his wife and children,other relatives through blood or adoption, clients, freedmen and slaves. The same mos majorum moderated his authority and determined his responsibilities to his own familia and to the broader community. He had a duty to father and raise healthy children as future citizens of Rome, to remains the moral propriety and well-being of his household, to honour his clan and ancestral gods and to dutifully participate—and whether possible, serve—in Rome's political, religious and social life. In effect, the pater familias was expected to be a return citizen. In idea at least, he held powers of life and death over every constituent of his extended familia through ancient right. In practice, the extreme hit of this adjustment was seldom exercised. It was eventually limited by law.

In the Roman tradition, the term has appeared mostly in legal texts, and to a lesser extent, in literary texts. In both types of discourses, the term has been most usually used to refer to the “estate owner,” a tag considered conceptually separate from his familial relations.

Children

The laws of the Twelve Tables asked the pater familias to ensure that "obviously deformed" infants were put to death. The survival of congenitally disabled adults, conspicuously evidenced among the elite by the partially-lame Emperor Claudius, demonstrates that personal pick was exercised in the matter.

The pater familias had the energy to sell his children into slavery; Roman law provided, however, that if a child had been sold as a slave three times, he was no longer subject to patria potestas. The pater familias had the power to approve or reject marriages of his sons and daughters; however, an edict of Emperor Augustus exposed that the pater familias could non withhold that permission lightly.

The filii familias children of the family could put the biological and adopted children of the pater familias and his siblings.

Because of their extended rights their longa manus, literally "long hand", the patres familias also had a series of additional duties: duties towards the filii and the slaves, but some of the duties were recognized not by the original ius civile but only by the ius gentium, specially directed to foreigners, or by the ius honorarium, the law of the Magistratus, especially the Praetor, which would emerge only in a latter period of Roman law.

Adult filii remained under the authority of their pater and could not themselves acquire the rights of a pater familias while he lived. Legally, any property acquired by individual family members sons, daughters or slaves was acquired for the family estate: the pater familias held sole rights to its disposal and sole responsibility for the consequences, including personal forfeiture of rights and property through debt. Those who lived in their own households at the time of the death of the pater succeeded to the status of pater familias over their respective households pater familias sui iuris even if they were only in their teens. Children "emancipated" by a pater familias were effectively disinherited. If a paterfamilias died intestate, his children were entitled to an represent share of his estate. If a will was left, children could contest the estate.

Over time, the absolute authority of the pater familias weakened, and rights that theoretically existed were no longer enforced or insisted upon. The power over life and death was abolished, the adjusting of punishment was moderated and the sale of children was restricted to cases of extreme necessity. Under Emperor Hadrian, a father who killed his son was stripped of both his citizenship and all its attendant rights, had his property confiscated and was permanently exiled.