Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

406 14. the family in the late roman world
they actually convey is that throughout the entire Roman imperial period
there was a substantial continuity in the mode of family formation among
the less affluent classes of the population.
The Christian epigraphy of Asia Minor also shows that Christianity did
not, as has sometimes been held, make a significant contribution to demographic
regression, at least as far as the fourth century is concerned. Using
such material as demographic evidence has enormous, often insurmountable,
limits, but what clearly emerges from a well-selected sample is that the
birth rate of Christian families belonging to the middle strata of the population
remained extremely high, very likely no lower than in the previous
centuries. 50
According to a recent theory, already in late antiquity Christianity played
an epoch-making role in the history of the western family by imposing and
spreading an exogamic model of matrimony, as opposed to the endogamic
model traditional to the Mediterranean cultures. Within this tendency, the
demands of morality combined with those of material expediency, for the
interdiction of endogamy (along with restrictions on adoption, concubinage
and second marriage) also favoured bequests of property to the
church. 51 The evidence of western inscriptions, however, has shown a very
strong prevalence and continuity of exogamy throughout the imperial
period, among Christians and pagans alike. Besides, archaic Roman society
had prohibited marriage up to the sixth degree inclusive, 52 and even after
the lifting of the ban, parallel and cross-cousin marriages continued to be
very rare in every rank of the pagan population. Hence the widening of the
concept of incest (imposed by the Christian authorities and incorporated
into imperial legislation) can hardly have had the devastating effect imagined.
53
50 Patlagean (1978) (the biggest weakness of this kind of enquiry is the lack of information on the
marriage rate). 51 Goody (1983) and (1990); for the traditional opinion, Weiss (1908).
52 Bettini (1988).
53 Shaw and Saller (1984); cf. Saller and Shaw (1984), Shaw (1984). The available evidence reveals
marriages with a parallel cousin, either german or more distant, on the father’s side; whereas those
between cross-cousins or parallel cousins on the mother’s side remain concealed (Shaw and Saller
(1984) 435, 437). This fact has been pointed out by Moreau (1994) 67, in a brief criticism of Saller and
Shaw’s works. However, the quantity of data produced by these authors on the rarity (which doesn’t
necessarily mean absence) of marriages between parallel cousins in the pre-Christian west is decisive
in one respect: it rules out the possibility that Roman marriages between parallel cousins on the father’s
side were very rare, while instead those between parallel cousins on the mother’s side – or even other,
closer, forms of endogamic marriage – were very frequent. In fact, the Roman rules of marriage either
forbade or permitted marriages between cousins outright, without specifying further: ‘Les différences
de relation de cousinage ne constituent ni prétexte à un interdit, ni privilège préférential ou prescriptif,
dans le champ matrimonial’, a situation that is also perfectly reflected in the terminology (Bettini (1994)
234). Moreau (1994) 67 also argues that the legal interdiction of consanguineous marriages would be
inexplicable if such marriages were very rare. Saller and Shaw, however, claim that they were rare in the
west, while taking it for granted that they were widespread in the east. Reservations on the epigraphical
analyses are also expressed in Corbier (1991).
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