(M325) Not only was the family, which consisted of the wedded pair and their dependents, a unit, but there was also a connection with ancestors and posterity which enlarged the family to a clan or _gens_. In this sense it often appears. The family thus constituted had definite rights over its members. It was very important to a man to be sure of his family connection. We may note the importance attached at all epochs to a man’s genealogy as distinguishing his individuality. His family identified him. There was a very large number of well-marked and distinguished families, which took their names from a remote ancestor. So far as our evidence goes, these ancestors were by no means mythical, but actually lived in the time of the first dynasty of Babylon. To all appearances they date back “to the Conquest.” Unfortunately no attempt has yet been made to work out the family histories. But men of such families were the _mâr bânê_, or “sons of ancestors,” and had special privileges, which continually emerge into notice. We may compare the hundred families of China and the patricians of many nations. There were other families of scarcely less antiquity and consideration. They do not name their ancestor, but refer to him as a tradesman. They were sons of “the baker,” of “the measurer,” _et cetera_, with which we may compare our proper names Baker and Lemesurier. There was a court of ancestry, _bît mâr bânûti_, which investigated questions arising from claims to belong to such families and which doubtless preserved in its archives the genealogical lists of these exclusive families. They must have registered the birth of all fresh members and all adoptions; for men were adopted freely into such families. (M326) It is not clear whether all members of a family which traced descent, real or putative, from a trade-father, actually carried on that trade. If so, we should have examples of a workmen’s guild. Certainly many men who carried on a trade were “sons” of the trade-father, but apparently not all. The Code notes the adoption of a child by an artisan who teaches him his trade. In certain cities the trades had their quarters. We read of the “city of the goldsmiths” in Nineveh. (M327) It may well be that these guilds were close corporations at first and continued so to be in the less crowded trades, but rivals outside the guild also came to be tolerated. The slaves were artisans in great numbers and their increase may have led to the decay of the old artisan guilds of free workers.