The Family

Family Status

To be born in a family was to be considerably important. Most male family members wore a short skirt that reached to the knees and the more important dignitaries wore a long skirt. The women covered the left shoulder with her skirt and fastened it under her right arm. The idea of family was not very highly developed in the Assyrian culture, especially in the earliest times. In the latter part of the Assyrian empire family names or more widely used, with emphasis on gentility and descent. Marriages were monogamous unlike the Old Babylonian Period. The first born son received the largest portion of his father's inheritance, but many times the entire estate was tended to by all the sons to avoid dissension in the family.