Kyrios (right)
The Kyrios ( ancient Greek κύριος kýrios 'lord') was the male chairman of the house association in ancient Greece . There he exercised the legal authority (κυρία kyría 'power of attorney').
The Kyrios had the right to determine all members of his household, especially women and slaves. With this position a “ gender guardianship ” is connected, which however was not strictly observed everywhere and was not absolute. Today, the kyría is primarily understood as " physical rule ". It is the right to legally and factually dispose of a thing. Furthermore, people who were not legally competent themselves (women, slaves, children) were represented in court by their Kyrios.
In legal transactions, a woman had to be represented by a male relative, her Kyrios: a married woman was represented by her husband; if a woman was not married, that woman's closest relative was that woman's kyrios; in the case of an unmarried girl or a widow who had returned to her family home, this was usually her father or, alternatively, her father's brother or uncle; but it could also be her son.
A Kyrios had to punish violations of his authority. If he did not use his power responsibly, it would damage his own reputation and the reputation of his wards.
literature
- Arnold Kränzlein : Property and possession in Greek law of the fifth and fourth centuries BC Chr. (= Berlin legal treatises. 8, ISSN 0523-0209 ). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1963.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Wilhelm Gemoll : Greek-German school and manual dictionary . G. Freytag Verlag / Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, Munich / Vienna 1965.