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This article examines the private orations of classical Athens for evidence of the relations between brothers, brothers and sisters, and brothers-in-law. Although affection could exist between male siblings, Athenian inheritance laws, requiring equal division of the paternal estate among male heirs, stimulated conflict between brothers. Females, however, could not inherit if they had brothers, neither were their dowries equal to their brothers' share of the patrimony. The interest of the natal family in giving a substantial dowry and in contracting a secure and prestigious marriage for the daughter often led to ties between brothers and sisters and cooperation between brothers-in-law. When cross-siblings or their descendants contended for the same estate, however, conflicts did arise, at times aggravated by the institution of adoption.

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With the publication recently of two valuable studies on Attic demes, we are now more fully aware of what we know, and do not know, of the deme. With Osborne's work, we now have some idea of the tendency of Athenians to own and maintain property in the deme of origin, but the role of marriage in consolidating property in that deme is more difficult to assess. In contrast to Osborne's focus on the ancestral deme, this brief study will concentrate on the deme into which the woman married; such a deme will be termed the deme of marriage or the marital deme. The study will focus particularly on the families who contracted more than one alliance for their kinswomen into the same outside deme and will emphasize the importance of siblings in securing and maintaining these alliances in the marital deme.

This article examines the private orations of classical Athens for evidence of the relations between brothers, brothers and sisters, and brothers-in-law. Although affection could exist between male siblings, Athenian inheritance laws, requiring equal division of the paternal estate among male heirs, stimulated conflict between brothers. Females, however, could not inherit if they had brothers, neither were their dowries equal to their brothers' share of the patrimony. The interest of the natal family in giving a substantial dowry and in contracting a secure and prestigious marriage for the daughter often led to ties between brothers and sisters and cooperation between brothers-in-law. When cross-siblings or their descendants contended for the same estate, however, conflicts did arise, at times aggravated by the institution of adoption.

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