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Adfinitas
ANN-CATHRIN HARDERS

The Latin term adfinitas/affinitas describes

both the specific relationship and the broader
kinship group that a person acquires by
entering a marriage. The modern derivative
affinity is still used in this sense in law,
as well as in cultural and social anthropology.
In classical Athens, the affine kinship group
was called the kedesteia; an in-law was classified as kedestes, an affine of ones affined was
known as synkedestes. Together with the male
members of the anchisteia, the bilateral kinship
group, affines were obligated to perform certain tasks such as avenging a kinsmans murder
(IG I 3 104.22; see ANCHISTEIA). The relationship
between an Athenian and his in-laws was supposed to be close and friendly. The kedesteia
was called upon frequently for support,
especially in court (Humphreys 1986: 7685).
In Roman society, affine kin were a heterogeneous group: the Roman jurist Modestinus
defines the adfines as the cognate relations of
the husband and wife and specifically mentions the father- and mother-in-law (socer/
socrus), son- and daughter-in-law (gener/
nurus), stepfather and stepmother (vitricus/
noverca), and stepson and stepdaughter
(privignus/privigna); adfines were not distinguished by grades (Mod. Dig. 38.10.4.35).
These adfines formed a legally defined group
of relations: they are mentioned, for instance,
in an imperial revision of the republican
lex Cincia on donations. Adfines and cognates
to the sixth degree were allowed to compensate
their relatives for pleading their cases in
court (Frag. Vat. 302). In social practice, collateral cognates (i.e., a wifes nephew), stepkin, and even adfines adfines were included.
Adfinitas was seen as a combination of diverse
lineages, cognatio, marriage, adfinitas,
gentilician structures (Moreau 1990: 12; see
AGNATIO; COGNATES, COGNATIO). Adfinitas was
announced upon betrothal and did not necessarily end upon dissolution of marriage: affine

relationships could continue to exist between

families, especially if children were involved
who constituted a common posterity (e.g.,
Cic. Quinct. 6.25; Sest. 3.6; Moreau 1990:
1618; for a prosopographical overview, see
Zmeskal 2009).
On a social level, adfinitas was seen as a
means of extending the kinship group by
marriage. Roman society opted for exogamy
and not only prohibited marriage between
cognates and agnates to the sixth, and later to
the fourth, degree, but also between adfines.
Marriage to ones stepchildren, children-inlaw, and parents-in-law was prohibited, even
after the spouse who had brought about
adfinitas had died or had been divorced (Gai.
Inst. 1.63; Pap. Dig. 23.2.15; Mod. Dig.
38.10.4.7; see EXOGAMY; MARRIAGE, GREECE AND
ROME). During the fourth century CE, marriage
prohibitions were extended to collateral affine
kin of the first degree, i.e., the brothers wife or
the wifes sister (CT 3.12.2). Levirate marriage
(Hebrew yibbum), which obliged a man to
marry the widow of his brother in the event
that his brother died childless, was practiced
in Judaism and mandated by the Torah (Deut
25: 510); however, it was prohibited in
Christian communities. Levirate marriage can
be compared in structure to the Greek practice
of marriage to an epikleros, i.e., marriage to a
brotherless heiress, since it enforced endogamous tendencies and guaranteed the continuity of the patrilineage (see EPIKLEROS).
On an abstract level, Cicero describes family
and affinity as the birthplace of a community
(Cic. Off. 1.54):
the first bond of union is that between husband
and wife; the next that between parents and children; then we find one home, with everything in
common. And this is the foundation of civil
government, the nursery, as it were, of the state.
Then follow the bonds between siblings, and next
those of first and then second cousins; and when
they can no longer be sheltered under one roof,
they go out into other homes as into colonies.
Conubia (i.e., the right to intermarry) and

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 6768.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah13006

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affinitates follow; and from that propagation and
succession states have their beginnings.

Ciceros emphasis on conubia et affinitates must

be understood as a Roman peculiarity. These
concepts are not mentioned by the Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE in the passage on the origins
of society on which Cicero obviously draws (cf.
Arist. Pol. 1252ab). The creation of affinity is
presented as a strategy to integrate the basic
units of familia and domus into a greater context: Cicero concludes that by interlinking isolated households through marriage, the state
emerges. However, modern analyses that view
adfinitas as a means of creating stable political
alliances and factions (Scullard 1973; Zmeskal
2009) are too reductive and do not consider
the social significance of affinity in the Roman
Republic (Harders 2008: 3144; 519).
SEE ALSO: Conubium; Endogamy; Gens;
Kinship; Marriage, Jewish; Matchmaker.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Guarino, A. (1939) Adfinitas. Milan.
Harders, A.-C. (2008) Suavissima Soror.
Untersuchungen zu den Bruder-SchwesterBeziehungen in der romischen Republik. Munich.
Humphreys, S. C. (1986) Kinship patterns in the
Athenian courts. Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Studies 27: 5791.
Moreau, Ph. (1990) Adfinitas. La parente par
alliance dans la societe romaine (Ier sie`cle av.
J.-C. IIe sie`cle ap. J.-C.). In J. Andreau and
H. Bruhns, eds., Parente et strategies familiales
dans lantiquite romaine. Actes de la table ronde de
24 octobre 1986: 326. Rome.
Schmitz, W. (2007) Haus und Familie im antiken
Griechenland. Munich.
Scullard, H. H. (1973) Roman politics 220150 BC.
Oxford.
Treggiari, S. (1991) Roman marriage. Iusti
coniuges from the time of Cicero to the time of
Ulpian. Oxford.
Zmeskal, K. (2009) Adfinitas. Die Verwandtschaften
der senatorischen Fuhrungsschicht der romischen
Republik von 218 31 v.Chr., 2 vols. Passau.