A FAMILY is a domestic society consisting of persons, either bound together by natural ties, or adopted into it on certain conditions. Among the Romans, and indeed the ancients generally, there was a third component part, namely, the slaves; who, as the property of the master, were embodied into his family; and it is from this lowermost class that the whole united body derives its name. For though familia has been deduced from the Greek όμιλία, as well as the Oscan famel, famul, famulus; yet the latter derivative only, adopted also by Festus, v. 65, can lay claim to authenticity; and it is evident that the Romans themselves were of this opinion, from passages such as Plautus, Mil. ii. 3. 80.

Familia, then, originally denoted a certain number of slaves That it was a fixed number, can hardly be inferred from Appulei. Apol. 504, but certainly a plurality must be supposed. Cicero, Cœc. 19. Comp. Ulp. Dig. L. 16, 40, ne duo quidem. Afterwards, however, it denoted the whole body of the domestic society; the free with their slaves, the pater familias (which name does not indicate him as the father, but as the superior of the house, Paul. Dig. L. 16, 195,) standing at their head.

In this sense, the condition of the existence of the family is marriage, it matters not in what form, whether the bond be drawn tighter or looser, provided it be the union of two persons of different sexes, ad individuam vitœ consuetudinem.