For social historians, family is a critical subject of study, perceived to be foundational to any society. Yet understanding family can be an elusive challenge as Huebner and Nathan's foreword makes clear. Their volume's title lays out the parameters of the collected essays, which resulted from a conference that grew out of a conversation about R. Saller and B. Shaw's seminal article, ‘Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate’ (JRS 74 [1984], 124–56). Huebner's introduction (Part 1) plumbs the intellectual underpinnings of the Mediterranean family by examining first the concept of the Mediterranean World, rooted as it is in the respective works of F. Braudel, J.G. Peristiany and J. Pitt-Rivers and modified by P. Horden and N. Purcell's The Corrupting Sea (2000), and questions the model of the Mediterranean family as it was developed in the works of P. Laslett, D.S. Reher and J. Goody. Huebner questions both the unifying effect of the Mediterranean World and the validity of the Mediterranean model that assumes family structures based on matrimonial patterns in which girls in their early teens married young men in their twenties. Instead, Huebner points to the many micro-historical studies indicating a high degree of regional diversity throughout the Mediterranean and to historical developments, most notably the expansion of the Roman Empire and the growth of Christianity, that resulted in temporal change. Nevertheless, she does ask if there were exigencies such as climate and economic realities that fostered a longue durée of family organisation in different regions of the Mediterranean, if there were historical factors that affected these patterns and if it is therefore possible to speak of a Mediterranean family model.

The contributors answer these questions by utilising both archaeological and textual evidence to examine households, extended families and domestic space. All are to be commended for moving beyond a strictly philological approach and drawing upon theoretical approaches from sociology, ethnography, anthropology and other disciplines to frame their studies. Notable for its absence from the volume's title and all but one contributor's title is the term kinship, though several of the contributors do not hesitate to use the term in their essays. The term's absence may be due to kinship having fallen out of vogue among anthropologists during the final decades of the twentieth century, attributable in large part to the work of D. Schneider, who rejected the structuralist understanding of kinship and instead saw it as an artificial social construct. The editors also reject the traditional anthropological approach of classifying and categorising family types, and the collected chapters exemplify the treatment of kinship in contemporary anthropology and point to the potential for studying kinship in antiquity.

The volume is organised chronologically in four subsections (Parts 2–5): ‘The Greek and Hellenistic World’, ‘The Roman World’, ‘Late Antiquity’ and ‘Outlook in Later Period of the Mediterranean’. The resulting time span covers the period from the late Bronze Age to the early Medieval Mediterranean in Part 5 and thus extends beyond the arbitrary limits of antiquity. The inclusion of Part 5 reflects Huebner's stated desire to overcome periodisation and her belief that the economic fundamentals of the pre-industrial Mediterranean world were sufficiently consistent to allow for meaningful comparison of family organisation from antiquity up to early modernity. This chronological ordering is a useful approach, but given the emphasis Huebner and Nathan place on Mediterranean regionalism and the desirability of comparative studies, there may have been benefits to structuring the volume by region or aspect, though Nathan's conclusion does tie many of the essays together. The comments that follow regroup the essays thematically to highlight possible comparisons.

The contributions from L. Day, X.M. Ayán Vila, H. Schwaiger, Huebner and A.L. Boozer focus on archaeological evidence from domestic spaces to glean information about family organisation within the household and social ties that existed between houses. Day sees evidence for single-conjugal-unit homes at the early Iron Age site of Vronda on Crete. These could be expanded to accommodate new conjugal units in the next generation, resulting in intergenerational co-residency and clusters of kin-related groups living in close proximity in separate houses. Ayán Vila's survey of changes in domestic structures of Iberian and Celtiberian settlements from the late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age points to a shift to sedentarism that saw the introduction of hill forts though there is no evidence of increasing social hierarchy. Subsequent contact with the Phoenicians led to the introduction of monumental architecture, increased inequality between households and the emergence of elites who would be open to Romanisation. Schwaiger is more circumspect in his interpretation of the domestic spaces at Ephesus between the Hellenistic period and Late Antiquity. Elite structures may not have been the only residences owned by their occupants, and the spaces within may have served multiple functions depending on circumstances. Likewise, non-elite houses may not have housed all the domestic functions of the household; there is evidence of communal cooking facilities. Huebner's and Boozer's contributions both examine domestic space and households in Roman Egypt. Huebner asks how the Egyptian evidence fits within the so-called Mediterranean model or if it is African or Near Eastern. She highlights that elite houses did not emulate Roman villas, but instead featured Aegean peristyle characteristics that projected a distinct Graeco-Egyptian identity. Among non-elites, simple family dwellings predominated in urban areas, while in rural settings extended family homes were commonplace. These were constantly modified to suit immediate needs with no evidence that emotional or symbolic significance was attached to the structure. Boozer agrees with Huebner's assertion that families did not attach meaning to structures, but that houses nevertheless reflected their occupants’ social outlook. Her comparison of houses in the Fayum and the Dakhleh Oasis examines interactions between houses in communal spaces, especially peer-group links evidenced by inbuilding between houses.

When possible, the archaeology papers incorporate textual evidence to contextualise the physical evidence. The essays that rely primarily on textual evidence provide further insights into the cultural mentalities pertaining to family and kinship held by the populations of the ancient Mediterranean. These studies highlight the flexibility of family structures, the social strategies that could be pursued within those structures and the degree to which the paradigm of the family was extensible and served as an organising principle within other segments of society in forms of fictive kinship. E. Varto's essay, ‘The Idea of Descent in Early Greek Kinship’, demonstrates how ideas about descent among aristocratic families functioned as claims to ancestral qualities (‘like begets like’), but that elite status was not simply a matter of birth. Status had to be maintained within society through the projection of prestige and the cultivation of aristocratic character. The networks that family created were flexible and constantly being renegotiated with each generation. F. McHardy turns to the relationship between Orestes and Pylades to examine cultural expectations in fifth-century Athens about kinship and revenge, concluding that inheritance and marriage practices created elaborate networks of relatedness beyond the nuclear family and agnatic line that could be called upon in times of crisis.

The flexibility of kinship permitted individuals and families to pursue different strategies to achieve their goals. The potential variety of strategies is apparent in D. Noy's treatment of migrant families among merchants on Delos and soldiers from the provinces stationed at Rome: familial relationships in the new locations may have reflected cultural norms but, as Noy points out, ‘people whose relationships might not have been very significant at home were drawn together by the circumstances in which they found themselves’ (p. 134). Likewise, Nathan's comparison of the writings of Ausonius in Gaul and Libanius in Syria in Late Antiquity asks if there was a Mediterranean pattern in which, according to M. Bettini, there was a distinction between paternal and maternal kin. His conclusion that both men expressed traditional filial piety in their writing and that Ausonius’ affection for his maternal kin was due to their social prominence, but that there was no evidence of a clear pattern of kin relations, is echoed in C. Laes and V. Vuolanto's study of elite families in southern Gaul, who also conclude that there was considerable flexibility in the way in which kin relations were prioritised.

Because of this flexibility, family could serve as a metaphor for other relationships, creating ties of fictive kinship. P. Keegan's chapter, ‘Traces of the Unfamiliar’, is a fascinating examination of how the language and idea of family was present in two vigiles cohorts and amongst the slaves of the imperial household. M. Tokarek LaFosse provides an engaging analysis of Pauline letters in which she shows how early Christian communities functioned as fictive kin groups and how males utilised the language and expectations of the traditional Graeco-Roman family to curb women who sought to redefine their gender roles within the new community. These relationships did not imitate rigid familial structures, but they did reflect cultural values and expectations of ideal family forms.

Nathan's concluding chapter is an excellent summation of the book and points to the many ways in which the essays respond to the questions set forth by Huebner. Regionalism was a strong influencer, and the effects of Romanisation and then Christianity on the make-up of family and households appear to have been negligible by comparison. Echoing M. Manfredini's critiques of P. Laslett found in his chapter, Nathan reiterates that the Mediterranean World is not simply southern Europe. To this point can be added the reality that antiquity is more than the classical past. Graeco-Roman Egypt is the only other region receiving extensive consideration within the volume. The impact of cultures originating in the Levant on the Mediterranean receives minimal coverage. K. Haase and R. Steinacher's chapter on Roman North Africa acknowledges pre-Roman, Phoenician influences on cultural practices in the region, and Ayán Vila's survey acknowledges Phoenician contact in the region. Studies of the family in the pre-Hellenistic cultures of Egypt, the Levant and Anatolia would be valuable complements to those assembled in this volume. Doing so poses the broader challenge of how to incorporate the myriad of potential surveys and microhistories into a unified format that would facilitate comparative studies of the family in the Mediterranean. Nathan's suggestion that one future direction is the use of databases of material culture could be extended to include a database of scholarly work on the topic. The danger of such an approach would be the temptation to rely on categorisation and taxonomies of family types, but even the essays in this volume present qualitative aspects of family and households that permit comparison. Huebner's call for a map of family forms in the ancient Mediterranean could be realised with a digital humanities project featuring a user side that draws on a qualitative database of scholarly research to map family forms in space and time onto a map of the Mediterranean World.