<P> The domestic responsibilities of the pater familias included his priestly duties (sacra familiae) to his "household gods" (the lares and penates) and the ancestral gods of his own gens . The latter were represented by the di parentes as ancestral shades of the departed, and by the genius cult . Genius has been interpreted as the essential, heritable spirit (or divine essence, or soul) and generative power that suffused the gens and each of its members . As the singular, lawful head of a family derived from a gens, the pater familias embodied and expressed its genius through his pious fulfillment of ancestral obligations . The pater familias was therefore owed a reciprocal duty of genius cult by his entire familia . He in his turn conferred genius and the duty of sacra familiae to his children--whether by blood or by adoption . </P> <P> Roman religious law defined the religious rites of familia as sacra privata (funded by the familia rather than the state) and "unofficial" (not a rite of state office or magistracy, though the state pontifices and censor might intervene if the observation of sacra privata was lax or improper). The responsibility for funding and executing sacra privata therefore fell to the head of the household and no other . As well as observance of common rites and festivals (including those marked by domestic rites), each family had its own unique internal religious calendar--marking the formal acceptance of infant children, coming of age, marriages, deaths and burials . In rural estates, the entire familia would gather to offer sacrifice (s) to the gods for the protection and fertility of fields and livestock . All such festivals and offerings were presided over by the pater familias . </P> <P> The legal potestas of the pater familias over his wife depended on the form of marriage between them . In the Early Republic, a wife was "handed over" to the legal control of her husband in the form of marriage cum manu (Latin cum manus means "with hand"). If the man divorced his wife, he had to give the dowry back to his wife and her family . By the Late Republic, manus marriage had become rare, and a woman legally remained part of her birth family . </P> <P> Women emancipated from the potestas of a pater familias were independent by law (sui iuris) but had a male guardian appointed to them . A woman sui iuris had the right to take legal action on her own behalf but not to administer legal matters for others . </P>

The head of the roman extended family was known as the paterfamilias