‘Donatus’ and Athenian phratries

My purpose in this paper is to reassert the traditional view that Athenian women of the classical period regularly had an association with phratries (and incidentally to clarify the nature of that association). As part (though not an essential part) of my argument I adduce an overlooked piece of evidence, a much discussed passage from the Donatus commentary on Terence; for this I provide a new interpretation.There is some evidence that Athenian women were introduced to their fathersphrateresat birth, or to their husbands'phrateresat marriage, or both. The speaker of Isaeus 3 repeatedly asserts (73, 75, 76, 79) that a certain Pyrrhus would have presented his daughter to hisphrateresif she had been legitimate (which he denies). A scholium on Aristophanes,Acharnians146 (=Suda s.v. Apatouria)may refer to such a practice. Euxitheus calls as witnesses of his mother's citizenshipphrateresfor whom his father celebrated the wedding feast, thegamelia, on her behalf (Dem. 57.43, 69, Isaeus 3.79); celebration of thegameliais regarded as proof of the legitimacy of the speaker's mother at Isaeus 8.19. Neither Demosthenes nor Isaeus says that women were formally registered among thephrateresor even present at the feast; but notices in the lexicographers do connect thegameliawith registration among or introduction to thephrateres(Harpocration s.v.gamelia, Suda s.v. gamelia, Etym. Magn.220.50 s.v.gamelia, Pollux 8.107,Anec. Bekk.228.5, Schol. Dem. 57.43). Many scholars have accepted these passages as evidence for normal practice at Athens in the classical period.