ABSTRACT
Older scholarship has seen the function of asceticism in the context of families mostly as a tool in family or kin strategies aiming at the disposal of extra children, either at birth or the age of marriage. This chapter examines critically these claims in the context of wider considerations about family economy and inheritance, looking at the factors that motivated the choice of asceticism by the individuals themselves or their family members. It deals with both continuity strategies for welfare during the lifetime of individuals and with manipulations of patrimony to secure continuity after death in a more abstract sense. As for the more wealthy families, the ideologically laden texts have directed scholarly attention to family disputes over patrimony due to asceticism. There are also sources that point directly to familial strategies behind the decisions involved when making a family member become an ascetic. At least ideologically, the former slaves were turned into ascetics and members of the spiritual family.
