Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-221) and indexes.

Family life and marriage. Basic household structures ; Household size and larger population estimates ; Life in the household ; Marriage : finding a partner, marriage gifts and dowry arrangements, the economics of divorce ; Summary -- The status of women and children. Roles and responsibilities of women ; The status of widows ; Children : roles and responsibilities of male offspring, roles and responsibilities of daughters ; Responsibilities toward parents ; inheritance ; Debt slavery ; Summary -- Work and financial exchanges. Occupations : the challenges of farming, animal husbandry, Other occupations ; Financial exchanges ; Borrowing and lending : Interest, the practice of surety, bribery ; Summary -- Taxation and the role of the state. Taxation in an advanced agrarian economy : anthropological perspectives ; Persian period ; Prolemaic period ; Seleucid period ; The Hasmoneans ; Roman period ; Summary -- The ethics of wealth and poverty. Ethics of wealth and poverty in the wisdom literature : contradictions in the book of Proverbs, Skepticism in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, Ben Sira and social ethics, Second temple instructions and question of an afterlife ; Apocalyptic eschatology, economics, and social ethics : 4QInstruction and the dead sea scrolls, the epistle of Enoch and the gospel of Luke, wisdom and apocalypticism ; The question of social location ; Summary.