Les comportements familiaux de l'aristocratie romaine (IIe siècle avant J.-C.- IIIe siècle après J.-C.) - article ; n°6 ; vol.42, pg 1267-1285

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations - Année 1987 - Volume 42 - Numéro 6 - Pages 1267-1285
Family Behavior in the Roman Aristocracy (200 BC to 300 AD)
This article first recalls the problems posed by terminological ambiguity and the fact that familles of the Roman aristocracy studied by historians have been artifactually reconstructed by prosopologists according to literary sources for the Republic and epigraphic sources for the Empire. We then consider the specifie answers provided by Roman society to problems crucial for any study of aristocratic strategies: demographic behavior (celibacy, marriage, fertility, birth rate, etc.), the choice of spouses (in marriage and kinship), and practices related to succession and inheritance. We compare their behavior with that of aristocracies from other eras and social contexts who had similar goals: the biological continuation of their familles, the transmission and increase of patrimonies, and the diversification and extension of symbolic capital. Despite the Roman aristocracy 's flexibility regarding adoption and divorce, it seems to have suffered from similar difficulties and failings as later ones. These difficulties indicate the coexistence of thoroughly contradictory ideals and practices which proscribe our viewing their behavior as uniform ; rather it continually changea over time and space, as afunction above all of transformations in political leadership.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.