ABSTRACT
In some respects, marriage was the sphere of life where the diverse individual systems and mores that made up the pluralist culture of Graeco-Roman Egypt manifested themselves most clearly. Like the architecture of the great provincial cities, marital practices in Egypt developed by a process of accretion. As one walked through the centre of a big town like Hermopolis or Oxyrhynchus, one would have seen a mixture of religious buildings in traditional Egyptian style rubbing shoulders with the classically designed public buildings that defmed the Greek polis the bath complex, the gymnasium and the theatre. But on leaving the centre, one would have moved into what Rostovtzeff, the doyen of the social historians of Egypt, saw as a large and dirty Egyptian village showing comparatively little change from previous eras. 1 Marriage in the Greek and Roman period was just such a melange. Early Greek settlers usually emigrated to Egypt alone, where they often formed relationships with local women. Deprived of the cultural framework provided by their home city, there was a gradual tendency for settlers to conform to local customs. As time went on, Greek forms of marriage began to be increasingly influenced by Egyptian ones.
