Marriage and Kinship at Gortyn

Abstract

Much valuable work on the Gortyn Code, which will be my chief source of evidence for this paper, was done in the 80's and 90's of last century, under the stimulus of the discovery of the complete inscription in the summer of 1884. The most extensive contributions were made by continental scholars, but one article appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1892 which remains an essential guide in the exploration of the procedural technicalities of the Code. It was written by J. W. Headlam, who prefaced his study with some remarks which made his standpoint of interpretation quite clear: