Greek scholars have produced a vast body of evidence bearing on nuptial practices that has yet to be mined by a professional economist. By standing on their shoulders, the author proposes and tests radically new interpretations of three important status groups in Greek history: the pallakē, the hetaira, and the nothos. It is argued that legitimate marriage – that is ‘marriage by loan of the bride to the groom’ – was not the only form of legal marriage in classical Athens and the ancient Greek world generally. Pallakia, that is, ‘marriage by sale of the bride to the groom’, also was legally recognized. The pallakē-wifeship transaction is a sale into slavery with a restrictive covenant mandating the employment of the sold woman as a wife. In this highly original and challenging new book economist Morris Silver proposes and tests the hypothesis that the likelihood of bride sale rises with increases in the distance between the ancestral residence of the groom and the father’s household. The ‘bastard’ (nothoi) children of pallakai lacked the legal right to inherit from their fathers but were routinely eligible for Athenian citizenship. It is argued that the basic social meaning of hetaira (‘companion’) is not ‘prostitute’/’courtesan’ but ‘single woman’ – that is, a woman legally recognized as being under her own authority (kuria). The defensive adaptation of single women is reflected in Greek myth and social practice by their grouping into ‘packs’, most famously the Daniads and Amazons.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• In the Interests of Disclosure
• I. Overview and Summary of Main Conclusions
• II. Socioeconomic Foundation of the Pallakē Institution
• III. Pallakē-Wife as Privileged Slave: Central Texts
• IV. Constructing the Greek Wife: Legal Aspects
  • 1. Alternative Forms of the Greek Marriage Contract
  • 2. Marriage by Loan: Male Kurios Lender
  • 3. Marriage by Sale: Male Kurios Seller
  • 4. Marriage by Self-Sale/Auto-Ekdosis
  • 5. Menander’s Glycera as Pallakē
  • 6. Marriage of Persephone to Hades
  • 7. Legal Enforceability of Self-Sale into Pallakia
  • 8. Restrictive Covenants Generally and in the Marriage Market
• V. Constructing the Greek-Wife: Ritual Aspects
  • 1. Marriage Rituals: Fundamentals
  • 2. Marriage Rituals: Oaths and Handshakes
  • 3. Lifting the Bride and Riding Together in a Chariot
  • 4. Chamaipous as a Symbol of Taking Ownership
  • 5. Marriage Rituals: Linking Chamapous with Pallakia
  • 6. Linking Chamapous with Pallakia: Additional Considerations
  • 7. Marital Rituals: Torch and Pallakia
• VI. “Wife” as a Multidimensional Status in Ancient Greece: Supplementary Evidence
  • 1. Forms of Marriage: Classical Athens
  • 2. Pindar Pythian 9 and Dual Marriage Forms
  • 3. The Pallakē as Understood by a Roman Legal Scholar
• VII: “Wife” as a Multidimensional Status in Ancient Greece: Testimony of Euripides’s Electra
• VIII. Path to Pallakia
  • 1. From Male-Headed Citizen Household to Pallakia in Isaeus 3
  • 2. From Single Woman Status to Pallakia
• IX. Single Woman as Hetaira as Suppliant
  • 1. Single Woman Status in Classical and Hellenistic Greece
  • 2. Meaning of Hetaira
  • 3. Hetaira as Single Woman in the Greek World
  • 4. Aetiological Myth and Legal Status of the Single Woman/Hetaira: Danaids and Amazons
• X. Wealth Transfers in the Greek Marriage Market with Emphasis on the Roles of Distance and Single Woman Status
  • 1. Relative Value of the Pallakē-Wife: Demand
  • 2. Relative Value of the Legitimate Wife: Supply
  • 3. Role of Distance in the Direction of Nuptial Wealth Transfers: Theory and Evidence
  • 4. Two Test Cases: Hephaestus’s Hedna and P.Eleph. 1
  • 5. Additional Factors Determining the Price Paid for a Pallakē
  • 6. Did Greek Gods Pay for their Mortal Brides?
  • 7. Behind the Terminology: Dōra vs. Hedna
  • 8. Behind the Terminology: Poludōros vs. Poluednos plus Proix vs. Phernē
• XI. Wealth Transfers in the Greek Marriage Market: The Spinning Hetaira
• XII. Companionship as an Adaptation to the Dangerous Life of the Single Woman
• XIII. Role of Cults in the Marriage of Single Women
• XIV. Hetaira as Textile Worker
  • 1. Iconographic Evidence
  • 2. Single Women as Live-in Textile Workers
  • 3. What Happened in Building Z?
  • 4. Brauron as a House of Textile Work
• XV. Legal Status of Nothoi
• XVI. Share the Wealth? Not with (Foreigner) Nothoi
• XVII. Case Studies in Pallakia: Homer’s Penelope as Pallakē
• XVIII. Case Studies in Pallakia: Hera as Zeus’s Pallakē
• XIX. Case Studies in Pallakia: Classical Athens
  • 1. Socrates the “Bigamist”
  • 2. Archippe as Pallakē
  • 3. Plangon as Pallakē
  • 4. The Nuptial Relationship between Alcibiades and Hipparete.
• Summary of Main Findings and Problems for Future Research
• Bibliography