Failing sons however, the next descent lay through a daughter. Nor were her qualifications in herself complete or sufficient in theory to form the necessary link in the chain of succession. The next of kin male had to marry her with the property of which she was ἐπίκληρος;[50] but neither she nor he really possessed the property, and the sons born from the marriage succeeded thereto directly on attaining a certain age. The next of kin had in the meantime of course to represent his wife's father in all the religious observances, and was said to have power to live with the woman (κύριος συνοικῆσαι τῇ γυναικί), but not to dispose of the property (κύριος τῶν χρημάτων);[51] the sons becoming κύριοι τῶν χρημάτων at sixteen years old, and owing thence only maintenance (τρέφειν) to their mother from [pg 024] the property.[52] The heiress was compelled to marry at a certain age and was adjudicated by law to the proper kinsman.[53]
Again an exact parallel is to be found in the Ordinances of Manu:—
“One who is without a son should, by the following rule, make his daughter provide him a son:—‘The offspring which may be hers shall be for me the giver of offerings to the manes.’ ”
The whole property of a man is taken by this daughter's son,[54] and, by her bearing a son, her father “becomes possessed of a son, who should give the funeral cake and take the property.”[55]
If she die without a son, her husband would take (presumably by a sort of adoption).[56] But this would be perfectly natural, if, as in Greece, her husband was bound to be the next of kin and therefore heir failing issue from her.
She must marry the next of kin.
At Athens it was part of the office of the archon to see that no οἶκος failed for want of representatives, to constrain a reluctant heiress to marry or to compel the next of kin to perform his duty. Plato[57] asks pardon for his imaginary legislator, if he shall be found to give the daughter of a man in marriage having regard only to the two conditions—nearness of kin, and the preservation of the property; disregarding, in his zeal for these, the further considerations, which the father himself might be expected [pg 025] to have had, with regard to the suitability of the match.[58]
even though already married.
A certain leniency was however allowed to the heiress who was unwilling to marry an obnoxious kinsman, and to the kinsman who had counterclaims upon him in his own house. Nevertheless the rules remained very strict. Isaeus states emphatically,[59] “Often have men been compelled by law to give up their properly wedded wives, owing to their becoming ἐπίκληροι through the death of their brother to their father's property and having to marry the next of kin (τοῖς ἐγγυτάτα γένους),” to prevent the extinction of their father's house.
Manu warns those about to marry to be careful that their children shall not be required to continue their wives' father's family, to the desolation of their own.