The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity.

* Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults

* Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia

* Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself

* Examines lifecycle rituals - from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond

* Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries