Changes in the Iranian Families during the Achaemenid Era

Since the ancient times, family has formed the oldest and the most fundamental column of the social pyramid in the society. In fact, when the primitive man passed the era of semi-savageness and the era of hunting animals for nutrition, family was formed. This small social pyramid started from father, children and close relatives and gradually covered uncles, cousins, aunts and grandchildren who all had the same customs, lived under the same roofs and always obeyed the elder and the leader of the family. In this era, the father had the right to take any form of action in the family. Father of the family had the absolute freedom and had the right to do whatever he wished. Even lives of all family members were in his hands; but gradually, this patriarchy with its absolute power disappeared and the coming to power of kingdom and the central government of the Achaemenids transformed these rules. By coming to power of this dynasty and appearance of concerns about strength of the society and on the other side, for the sake of more childbirth for great wars, tendency towards family became more apparent; so much so that the Achaemenid kings themselves encouraged formation of families and assigned gifts for families that gave birth to more sons. In this study, we first deal with the course of changes in the family system in this period. In the second part, marriage has been discussed. In the third part, we discussed incest marriage. In the fourth part, we have talked about divorce. In the fifth part, we have discussed the legal rights of family system in this period, and in the last part, by this implication that the Iranian family system in the Achaemenid era, considering the formation of different economic, social and political conditions, has experienced further changes and become more important and significant, we ended this study.