The family and the patriarchate in ancient Baltic societies

The family in the 13th and 14th century Lithuania represented a unit in many senses, from economical and productive to social, organisational, and legal. The average family consisted of five or six people. The remains of a 14th century house in the lower town of Kernavė feature a plank-bed, made of several benches, up to three by 1.7 metres. Since the average human of the time was about 1.65 metres tall, the bed could accommodate the entire family of five to six people. On the other hand, the family also had a broader meaning, the one that covered two or three generations of relatives, such as fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, as well as unmarried brothers and sisters.

There were no strict differences between the smaller and the broader family as both of them had the same structure and carried out similar economic activity. There was no real-life motive why the larger family would split into several smaller ones because the broader family could more easily affo

The family and the patriarchate in ancient Baltic societies

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The family and the patriarchate in ancient Baltic societies

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