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When women married they did not come under the legal authority ( potestas) of husbands, nor was their property controlled by him. Adult children whose father’s had died became legally independent (Latin: sui iuris), whether they were male or female. The social convention was to give children roughly equal shares of the estate. At that time, they inherited property from him. Under Roman law, both women and men technically owned no property until their father died. Yet the proportion of property owned by women is also large enough to suggest women’s ownership was by no means unusual. The disparity reinforces our assumption that women were not social equals of men. About one-third of all property was owned by women, two-thirds by men. In the New Testament period, women owned a substantial amount of property. While some widows were greatly disadvantaged, many would have experienced only a slight drop in economic or social status, and possibly none at all. Legal and social norms of this period granted women property rights and substantial authority within their households and communities. The above picture is largely false for the Mediterranean world of the first and second centuries. Widows were also legally subordinate to these male relatives. Having a father or son was fortunate, because otherwise widows were entirely without resources. A wife was dependent on her husband, and when he died, she went to live with her father’s household if he was alive, or to an adult son if she had one. Perhaps most important is the idea that widows could not possess their own property. The notion that widows needed someone to take care of them rests on ideas about the legal and social status of women. However, historical evidence suggests we should rethink these assumptions. The basic idea-that widows were always at the mercy of others to care for them-is often repeated in commentaries, classrooms, and sermons. Interpreters of the New Testament often employ a common set of assumptions about the social context to understand the position of widows. See Also: Women in the New Testament World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).