ABSTRACT
Within the framework of tribes (phylai) and clans (gene) Greek society was essentially based on the family, on the oikos (or household), which was composed of a combination of free people and slaves. The family was under the power of the head of the household, and it was a tightly bound unit with complex hierarchical relationships. The term oikos covered not only the members of the nuclear family, but the whole physical and economic unit, including property, slaves and land, and there was strict limitation of succession by inheritance, only to be broken under specific circumstances. The oikos was also a religious unit, which placed particular emphasis on maintaining the tombs of the family’s ancestors. Apart from their membership of the family, all or most Athenian males were enrolled in the phratry, or brotherhood, of their father. Indeed before the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508/7 citizenship depended on membership of a phratry. After this, while phratry-membership was not legally necessary, failure to be able to prove it was considered suspicious and those whose claims to citizenship are disputed regularly demonstrate their membership of a phratry as well as of a deme (cf. doc. 5.7; cf. docs 10.20-22).
