The Roman family was not organized around the modern concept of the nuclear household. It was organized around the paterfamilias — the father of the family — who held legal authority over every person within his household: wife, children, grandchildren, slaves, and freed slaves. This authority — patria potestas — was not merely social convention. It was law, with specific legal contents that remained on the books, in modified form, for centuries. The paterfamilias could theoretically expose newborn children he did not wish to raise, sell his children into slavery under certain conditions, and held the power of life and death over his household — a power the law described explicitly even as social practice made it increasingly rare and eventually prohibited.