Briseis in the Chora? The Mother's Role in the Marriage Documents from Greco-Roman Egypt

Abstract

The presence of the mother in some marriage contracts in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt raises the question of whether her presence implies that she has recovered a role that she had played in historical periods prior to the formation of the polis or whether, on the contrary, it is a characteristic of this period and, if the latter, the point is whether it is a revival of an ancient Greek institution, or rather an influence of local law. It is also possible that the disappearance of the regulations of the polis in the Greek emigration led women to develop their activities with greater freedom and that the presence of the mother in marriage contracts simply reflected her new role in Hellenistic society, regardless of whether there was a historical precedent for doing so.