Epikleros
An epikleros was an heiress in ancient Athens and other ancient Greek city states, specifically a daughter of a man who had no sons. In Sparta, they were called patrouchoi, as they were in Gortyn. Athenian women were not allowed to hold property in their own name; in order to keep her father's property in the family, an epikleros was required to marry her father's nearest male relative. Even if a woman was already married, evidence suggests that she was required to divorce her spouse to marry that relative. Spartan women were allowed to hold property in their own right, and so Spartan heiresses were subject to less restrictive rules. Evidence from other city-states is more fragmentary, mainly coming from the city-states of Gortyn and Rhegium.
Plato wrote about epikleroi in his Laws, offering idealized laws to govern their marriages. In mythology and history, a number of Greek women appear to have been epikleroi, including Agariste of Sicyon and Agiatis, the widow of the Spartan king Agis IV. The status of epikleroi has often been used to explain the numbers of sons-in-law who inherited from their fathers-in-law in Greek mythology. The Third Sacred War originated in a dispute over epikleroi.
Etymology
The term epikleros was used in Ancient Greece to describe the daughter of a man who had died leaving no male heir. It translates to "attached to the family property", or "upon, with the estate". In most ancient Greek city states, women could not own property, and so a system was devised to keep ownership within the male-defined family line. Epikleroi' were required to marry the nearest relative on their father's side of the family, a system of inheritance known as the epiklerate. Although epikleros is often mistranslated as "heiress", strictly speaking the terms are not equivalent, as the woman never owned the property and so was unable to dispose of it. Raphael Sealey argues that another translation could be "female orphan". The term was used interchangeably, both of the woman herself, and of the property that was the inherited estate. The entire system of the epiklerate was unique to Ancient Greece, and mainly an Athenian institution.Athens
is the city-state that is best documented, both in terms of epikleroi and in all aspects of legal history. Athenian law on epikleroi was attributed to Solon; women with no brothers had to marry their nearest male relative on their paternal side of the family, starting with their father's brother and moving from there to the next nearest male relative on the paternal side. The historian John Gould notes that the order of relatives that were required to marry the epikleros coincided with the relatives required to avenge a murder. This set of relatives was known as the anchisteia in Athens. The anchisteia was also the group of relatives who would inherit property in the absence of legal heirs. If there was more than one possible spouse in a set of relatives, the right to marry the epikleros went to the eldest one. The property that was inherited could also be in debt, which would not affect the epikleros' status.Definition of the term in Athens
Although epikleros was most often used in the case of a daughter who had no living brothers when her father died, the term was also used for other cases. The Suda, a 10th-century CE lexicon and encyclopedia, gives other definitions, including an heiress who was married at the time of her father's death and an unmarried daughter without brothers still living with her father. The Suda also stated that the term could be used of a daughter who had living sisters. Although the Suda indicates that in normal usage, the mother of the heiress was also dead, this is incorrect: whether or not the mother was alive had no bearing on the status of the epikleros. Occasionally the term is also used as a feminine form of the Greek term orphanos, or "orphan". Although a scholiast of Aeschines, or a later writer amending the text, stated that the term could also be used of a daughter who was given to a man in marriage on her father's deathbed, there is no extant use of the term in that sense in literature, and the scholiast has probably misunderstood a scenario from the comic playwright Aristophanes.The term in Athens seems to have always been somewhat loosely used in legal proceedings. Apollodorus, an Athenian politician and litigant from the 4th century BCE, in one of his speeches attempted to use an Athenian law about betrothal to make his mother an epikleros. He claimed that the law defined an epikleros as a female without father, a brother who shared a father with her, or a paternal grandfather. His opponent, however, seems to have disputed this interpretation of the law. A speech by Isaeus, a 4th-century BCE speechwriter, rests on the claim that the speaker's mother only became an epikleros after her young brother died following their father's death. Whether the legal authorities recognized the speaker's claim as valid is unknown. It appears, at least according to some plays, that a woman with a brother who died after their father was considered the epikleros of her brother, not her father.
Development of the practice
It is unclear if there were laws dealing with epikleroi prior to Solon's legislative activity around 594 BCE. According to the 1st century CE writer Plutarch, Solon authored legislation covering the epikleros. Solon's laws attempted to prevent the combination of estates by the marriage of heiresses. Modern historians have seen this as part of an effort by Solon to maintain a stable number of households. According to Plutarch, Solon also legislated that the husband of an epikleros must have sexual intercourse with her at least three times a month in order to provide her with children to inherit her father's property, but by the time of Pericles this law is definitely attested. It is unclear whether or not the nearest relative had the power to dissolve an epikleros' previous marriage in order to marry her himself in all cases. The historian Sarah Pomeroy states that most scholars lean towards the opinion that the nearest relative could only dissolve the previous marriage if the heiress had not yet given birth to a son, but Pomeroy also states that this opinion has not yet been definitely proven. Roger Just disagrees and has argued that even if the epikleros had a son she could still be forced to marry her nearest relative. Athenian law also required that if the next of kin did not marry the heiress, he had to provide her with a dowry. It may have been Solon who legislated that if the new spouse was unable to fulfill his thrice monthly duties to his wife, she was entitled to have sex with his next of kin so that she could produce an heir to her father's property. Alternatively, she might have been required to divorce and marry the next nearest relative.Legal procedures
When a man died leaving an epikleros, the heiress was felt to be epidikos, or as it literally translates, "adjudicable". This made her available for the specialized procedure for the betrothal of an epikleros, a type of court judgement called epidikasia. The proceedings took place in the archon's court, for citizen epikleroi. For the epikleroi of resident aliens in Athens, the metics, the polemarch was in charge of their affairs. It was also the case that if a man made a will, but did not give any of his daughters their legal rights as epikleroi in the will, then that will was held to be invalid. A young Athenian male, prior to coming of age and serving his time as an ephebe, or military trainee, was allowed to claim epikleroi, the only legal right an ephebe was permitted in Aristotle's day, besides that of taking office as a priest in an hereditary priesthood. It is also unclear if a man who was eligible to marry an epikleros but was already married could keep his previous wife while also claiming the epikleros. While all evidence points to the ancient Athenians being monogamous, there are two speeches by Demosthenes implying that men did indeed have both a wife acquired through the normal betrothal procedure and another who was adjudicated to them through the epidikasia procedure. The archon was also responsible for overseeing the treatment of epikleroi, along with widows, orphans, widows who claimed to be pregnant and households that were empty.When sons of an epikleros came of age, they gained the ownership of the inheritance. In Athens, this age was given in an extant law, and was two years past the age of puberty of the son. In Solon's laws, it appears that the eldest son of the epikleros was considered the heir of his maternal grandfather, with any further sons being considered part of their father's household. The son's inheritance of his maternal grandfather's property happened whether or not his father and mother were alive, unlike most other inheritances. And the son of an epikleros did not inherit anything from his father, and was named after his grandfather. The heir could further consolidate his position by being posthumously adopted by his maternal grandfather, but this was not required. By the 4th century BCE, legal practices had changed, and the son could also inherit from his father, as well as from his maternal grandfather. And if there was more than one son, they divided the estate passed by the epikleros between themselves. After the heir secured possession of his inheritance, the law specified that he was to support his mother. It is likely that the debts of the grandfather were also inherited along with any property.
Although the law did not rule on who exactly owned the property before the son took possession, it appears from other sources that it was not actually owned by the husband of the epikleros, in contrast to the usual procedure in Athens where the husband owned any property of the wife and could do with it as he willed. A number of speeches imply that the property was considered to be owned by the epikleros herself, although she had little ability to dispose of it. The husband probably had day to day control of the property and administered it, but was responsible for the management to the epikleros' heirs when they came of age. The position of the husband of an epikleros was closest to that of an epitropos, or the guardian of an orphan's property, who was likewise responsible to the orphan for his care of the property when the orphan came of age. Another parallel with the orphan was that an epikleros' property was exempt from liturgies , or the practice of requiring citizens to perform public tasks without compensation, as was the orphan's.
It may have been possible for the husband of an epikleros to allow the posthumous adoption of the son of an epikleros as the son of the epikleros' father. This would prevent the inheritance of the newly adopted son of any property from his natural father, but it had the advantage of preserving the adoptee's oikos, commonly translated as "household" but incorporating ideas of kinship and property also. Although the preservation of the paternal oikos is usually felt to be the reason behind the whole practice of the epiklerate, the historian David Schaps argues that in fact, this was not really the point of the practice. Instead, he argues, that it was the practice of adoption that allowed the preservation of an oikos. Schaps feels that the reason the epiklerate evolved was to ensure that orphaned daughters were married. Other historians, including Sarah Pomeroy, feel that the children of an epikleros were considered to transmit the paternal grandfather's oikos. The historian Cynthia Patterson agrees, arguing that adoption may have seemed unnecessary, especially if the epikleros and her husband gave their son the name of the maternal grandfather. She argues that too much attention has been paid to the patrilineal aspects of the oikos, and that there was probably less emphasis on this in actual Athenian practice and more on keeping a household together as a productive unit.
The historian Roger Just states the main principle of the epiklerate was that no man could become the guardian of the property without also becoming the husband of the epikleros. Just uses this principle to claim that any man adopted by the father of an epikleros was required to marry the epikleros. Just states that the forcible divorce and remarriage of an epikleros was based on this principle, arguing that if the father of the epikleros had not adopted the first husband, the husband was not really the heir. Just sees the development of the epiklerate as flowing from Solon's desire to keep the number of Athenian households constant. According to Just, before Solon's legislation, the epikleros was just treated as part of the property, but that Solon's reforms transformed the epikleros into a transmitter of the property and her son the automatic heir to her father's estate.
Taking as a wife an epikleros who had little estate was considered a praiseworthy action, and was generally stressed in public speeches. Such an heiress was called an epikleros thessa. If the nearest male relative did not wish to marry an epikleros who belonged to the lowest income class in Athens, he was required to find her a husband and provide her with a dowry on a graduated scale according to his own income class. This dowry was in addition to her own property and the requirement was designed to ensure that even poor heiresses found husbands. The law also did not stipulate what was to happen if the epikleros was still an infant or too young for consummation of the marriage when she was claimed.