The Origins of the Greek Family

Ingalls: The gens supplanted the role of the family as a unit of social formation in the first place. Ingalls writes that under the Gentile constitution the family was never organizational unit and could not be so for man and wife necessarily belong to two different gents. In public law the state also does not recognize the family up to the state the family was only exist in private law. And yet all our histories have hitherto started from the absurd assumption which since the 18th century has become inviolable that the monogamous single family is the core around rich society, he says.