18 Facts About Pater familias

Pater familias, written as paterfamilias, was the head of a Roman family.

The pater familias was the oldest living male in a household, and could legally exercise autocratic authority over his extended family.

Pater familias held legal privilege over the property of the familia, and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children, certain other relatives through blood or adoption, clients, freedmen and slaves.

Pater familias had a duty to father and raise healthy children as future citizens of Rome, to maintain the moral propriety and well-being of his household, to honour his clan and ancestral gods and to dutifully participate—and if possible, serve—in Rome's political, religious and social life.

In Roman law, the potestas of the pater familias was official but distinct from that of magistrates.

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Pater familias was responsible for its well-being, reputation and legal and moral propriety.

The entire familia was expected to adhere to the core principles and laws of the Twelve Tables, which the pater familias had a duty to exemplify, enjoin and, if necessary, enforce, so within the familia Republican law and tradition allowed him powers of life and death.

Pater familias was obliged to observe the constraints imposed by Roman custom and law on all potestas.

Domestic responsibilities of the pater familias included his priestly duties to his "household gods" and the ancestral gods of his own gens.

The pater familias was therefore owed a reciprocal duty of genius cult by his entire familia.

Women emancipated from the potestas of a pater familias were independent by law but had a male guardian appointed to them.

Laws of the Twelve Tables required the pater familias to ensure that "obviously deformed" infants were put to death.

Pater familias had the power to sell his children into slavery; Roman law provided that if a child had been sold as a slave three times, he was no longer subject to patria potestas.

Filii familias could include the biological and adopted children of the pater familias and his siblings.

Legally, any property acquired by individual family members 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.

Over time, the absolute authority of the pater familias weakened, and rights that theoretically existed were no longer enforced or insisted upon.

Patres Pater familias wielded complete and separate authority over members of their households, including their enslaved laborers.

In cases of adjudicating legal transgressions committed by enslaved persons, patres Pater familias exhibited equivalent jurisdiction as that of local civil magistrates, including the ability to absolve the enslaved of any wrongdoing, trying them by jury, or sentencing them to capital punishments.