MARRIAGE IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL PERIOD
Mantas, Konstantinos (Athens)
POLIS, 11 (1999)
Abstract
Study of the philosophical texts produced during the early empire, especially the Stoic ones, suggests that a change in the relationship between spouses had started to take place in the minds of the male members of the Reman élite. There was, of course, no radical change of view which perceived marriage as one of the pillars of society, but the Stoics pursued the matter with much more eagemess than the 5th and 4th century BC Greek philosophers. Their texts have been studied by 
M.Foucault, who devoted a whole chapter of his book, The Care of the Self, Vol 3, to the analysis ofthe Stoic concept of marriage’. His conclusión was that Musonius Rufiís, Plutarch, etal., had developed a concept of ideal marriage in which husband and wife were united in body and soul, a bond which was much stronger than the one which existed between spouses in classical Athens. Foucault presents his thesis brilliantly but limits himself to philosophy because he was interested in writing a history of ideas, rather than a social history.
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