BMCR 2004.10.19, Yiftach-Firanko, Marriage & Marital

Uri Yiftach-Firanko, Marriage and Marital Arrangements. A History of
the Greek Marriage Document in Egypt. 4th century BCE - 4th century CE.
Mu+nchener Beitra+ge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte,
93.  Mu+nchen:  C.H. Beck, 2003.  Pp. 388; pls. 4.  ISBN 3-406-51167-8.
EUR 82.00.

Reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, Brooklyn College (bgarstad@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Word count:  1699 words
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A detailed examination of complex and unfamiliar material does not
always go together with a clear and accessible expression of ideas and
concepts. This is happily not the case with Uri Yiftach-Firanko's
(hereinafter Y.) new book on the Greek marriage document in Egypt,
which, while a significant scholarly contribution, can be read
painlessly and profitably by practically anyone. Y.'s subtitle properly
expresses the scope of his work: it is not a broadly inclusive social
history of marriage in Egypt but a study in legal papyrology focused on
the provisions included in Greek marriage documents from Egypt.
Non-papyrological sources are not considered systematically, but Y.
views his work as a contribution to a fuller study of the popular law
of the Roman east, which would include sources from literature and
Roman law. The chronological scope is determined by the available
evidence, which begins in 310 B.C. and ends in A.D. 363. Y.'s book
offers a fresh engagement with the papyri, but it also reexamines the
theses of important works in the field, especially those of H. J. Wolff
(Written and Unwritten Marriages in Hellenistic and Postclassical Roman
Law, 1939) and G. Ha+ge (Ehegu+terrechtliche Verha+ltnisse in den
griechischen Papyri A+gyptens bis Diokletian, 1968).

After the Introduction the opening chapter (Chap. 2) lists and breaks
down the source material to be used, principally 141 Greek marriage
documents. Although these are distributed across a more or less full
spectrum of time, place, and scheme, most of them are dowry receipts
(81 out of 141), and most of them are from the second century A.D.
(49%) and the Arsinoite nome (53%). Y. also introduces here the related
papyri, mostly legal petitions with a bearing on marriage documents.
These chiefly concern the sundering of marriage ties by death or
divorce, and the legal, monetary, and material consequences of the
break-up.

In discussing the act of marriage (Chap. 3), Y. does not accept Wolff's
suggestion that 'free marriage' of mutual consent, without an ekdosis,
and with no legal standing, was practiced in Egypt. Y. notes that
Wolff's argument is based on the omission of an ekdosis clause from
later Ptolemaic and Roman marriage documents but that Wolff had shown
that the purpose of these instruments was to document not the marriage
itself but the money or goods involved. Y. suggests that an ekdosis is
presumed where it is not actually mentioned and concludes that all
marriage documents concern a marriage in which the bride has been
'given away'. In remarkable contrast to fifth-century Athenian
practice, the ekdosis might have been performed by a woman, most often
the bride's mother but on occasion the bride herself.

The initial marriage document in the Ptolemaic chora and Augustan
Alexandria (a homologia gamou , or synchoresis in Alexandria) usually
contained a clause anticipating the composition of a further document
(the syngraphe synoikesiou, or hierothytai syngraphe). These two
different documents have been explained as indicating two sorts of
marriage (one informal, and the other 'perfect'), or as two stages in
the formation of the same marriage. Y. explains this 'double
documentation' (Chap. 4) as the private and public records of a
marriage. The initial private document included the provision that
another copy of the marriage document should be deposited in the public
archive. As the initial document came to fall under official
supervision, this clause was gradually discarded.

Chapter 5 deals with agraphos gamos or unwritten marriage and related
concepts, and Y. admits that it is not at present possible to offer a
single explanation which accounts for all of the available evidence.
Nevertheless, certain assertions can be made. A man living together in
an unwritten marriage with a woman apparently had more extensive rights
over the children of that union than if he had entered into an
engraphos gamos with his wife. For instance, he had the power to
dissolve his daughter's marriage against her will or invalidate his
son's will. 'To live together in an unwritten manner' (agraphos
syneinai) was not the same as an 'unwritten marriage', but rather
indicated that a marriage document had not yet been composed. Marriage
documents were composed not to record the formation of a marriage but
to record the property arrangements of a marriage. So a document might
be drawn up well after the commencement of a marriage, or not at all if
other inducements were available to compel the parties to abide by the
provisions of the marital agreements (as seems to have been the case in
sibling marriages).

The extensive evidence for dowry provisions in the marriage document
allows Y. to apply a diachronic perspective to their development. The
changes in the dowry provisions indicate a strengthening of the wife's
position with regard to the assets she brought to the marriage, at the
expense of her husband's power of disposal (kyrieia) and effective
dominion (kratesis). In the Ptolemaic period the wife conveyed property
into the joint household through a pherne, and her husband had almost
complete rights of use and disposal over the items of the pherne. The
wife could, however, bring an accusation against her husband if he
disposed of this property 'to her detriment', in which case he might be
compelled to repay the dowry and a fine. Later, she was able to demand
the return of her dowry without going through the accusation procedure
and to expect it back within a short period of time. In the Roman
period two further dowry categories developed alongside the pherne. The
parapherna conveyed items for the personal use of the wife during the
course of the marriage, and she retained effective ownership of them.
The prosphora conveyed land and slaves, and while the husband
acknowledged receipt of these items, he never acquired title to them.
The husband had no right to dispose of items in the parapherna, and so
wives tended to convey the bulk of their wealth, especially gold
jewellery, under this heading. But while the wife retained greater
control over her assets, she relinquished her husband's liability for
their depreciation over the course of their marriage. This situation
changed in the beginning of the second century, when a clause was
introduced which stipulated that a husband must return any gold
jewellery itself which was included in the pherne, at its original
weight and value, thus denying him rights of disposal and making him
responsible for depreciation. After this most gold jewellery was
conveyed in the pherne.

Y. deals briefly with the 'terms of joint life' (i.e., non-material
arrangements) as set out in the marriage document (Chap. 7). These
provisions address matters of moral and sexual conduct and also the
husband's responsibility to support his wife and so avoid any
misconduct not merely for moral reasons but also so as not to spread
his resources too thin. They also stipulate the punishment to be
imposed for contravention: loss of the dowry in the case of the wife,
and repayment of twice the amount of the dowry in the case of the
husband. The evidence also indicates that in the wake of a domestic
crisis couples might draw up a special document which addressed the
causes of their discord specifically.

The contravention of marital obligations might prove to be grounds for
divorce, the subject of chapter 8. If the divorce was initiated by the
husband, he was obliged to return the dowry and 'send away' his wife.
This reversal of the ekdosis formally ended the marriage. If the wife
took the initiative, she was in an unenviable position. She had to
begin the accusation procedure against her husband, or later to give
him notice of her intention, and then remain in the joint house lest
she be accused of being 'absent without her husband's consent' and
forfeit her dowry. It is not surprising that some women waited until
their husbands were gone, seized their dowries and left.

Marriage might also be ended by death (Chap. 9). In this case, the
presence or absence of common children made all the difference. Where
there were common children the surviving spouse retained ownership of
the property and was expected to administer it for the benefit of the
children. If a wife died childless, her husband was expected to return
her dowry within a certain period of time. If a husband died childless,
his wife had the right to extract her dowry from his estate, but the
variety of sureties which were attempted indicates that it could be
difficult to realize this right.

The wife had recourse to a number of modes of security in order to
assure the return of her dowry (Chap. 10). Primarily this was through a
legal execution (praxis). In the case of the husband's death she had
right of protopraxia in preference to his other creditors, but she also
had the advantage of being administrator (kyrieuousa) of the family
assets. She retained this position for an interval after her husband's
death, and if his heirs did not return her dowry within a fixed period,
it became full title.

The conclusion neatly summarizes the foregoing analysis and especially
its examination of a development over time. Y. emphasizes two
significant points: first that the marriage document was prepared in
order to protect the interests of the wife, and second that the changes
to the wording of the marriage document over time testify to its
continuing vitality and importance. He also raises two intriguing
propositions, which might have been developed in the text (as it is,
they are introduced in the conclusion): 1) notaries may have had a
prominent role in "introducing new provisions or remodeling old ones"
in the marriage documents; and 2) the peculiarities of marriage
documents in different nomes may indicate regional differences in the
legal tradition of Greek Egypt. Hopefully, we may look forward to
further work on these matters by Y.

The book ends with two appendices, a bibliography, index locorum, and a
select general index. The first appendix is comprised of fifteen charts
and tables which present the evidence for the body of the text in
detail. In the second appendix, Y. offers an edition of six previously
unedited marriage document papyri in the usual format of introduction,
text, commentary, and translation (with photographic plates at the
back).