G. Wolf. The Roman family in the Empire : Rome, Italy, and beyond, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford u.a., "The Roman Family in the Empire" is a collection of essays edited by Michele George set in the wake of the Australian conferences, begun by Beryl Rawson in 1981, that produced three volumes published in 1986, 1991 and 1997. As the editor points out in her Introduction (pp. 1-8) "quite coincidentally a number of scholars in different parts of the mainly Anglo-American world were beginning to focus on the topic of the Roman family as a distinct theme in ancient social history." This book dedicated to Beryl Rawson collects the proceedings of a fourth Conference held in Canada in 2001. George recalls as a starting point
Keith Hopkins's pioneering application of demography to the ancient context and particularly the demographic study of Saller and Shaw on the Roman family. Saller and Shaw, using funerary inscriptions from Western Europe, arrived at the conclusion that the Roman family was essentially nuclear, similar to our modern family based on solidarity and affection. The editor gives an outline of some of the criticisms of this view that have been expressed. Two of the main arguments are that the Roman term familia cannot be translated as "family", but has other meanings such as "household" and that there is widespread evidence through the Roman empire territories of extended families with a more complex structure than the nuclear one. But for George, the last generation of scholarship that has focused on the component elements of family life, "rather than resolving the question of structure", has complicated it "by enhancing our understanding of the many dimensions
of experience which fall within the category of 'family life', but for which the issue of structure has only minor relevance." The stated aim of the collection is to extend research beyond Italy to investigate regional diversity. The approaches of the essays vary but are very centered on criticizing, furthering or detailing the theories of Saller
and Shaw. After an overview of the book's contents we will come back to these strong opening statements of the editor..(2005)