Family And Household

Chapter Summary

This chapter begins with a brief discussion of several servile families who appear in the cuneiform record over a decade and a half, an exceptional length of time in the world of these rosters. It considers the methods used to identify servile families in the corpus and the familial terms. The chapter discusses what these families reveal about the size and nature of the Middle Babylonian servile household and the statistics available on each household type. It also discusses the nuclear family, especially the information available on the offspring of single mothers. The chapter presents the evidence for polygamy and age discrepancies between husband and wife. The conjugal family unit, also known as the nuclear family, consists of a married pair (with or without children) or a single parent (including a widow or widower) with children.

Keywords: conjugal family unit; household; servile families