It may have been possible for the husband of an "epikleros" to allow the posthumous adoption of the son of an "epikleros" as the son of the "epikleros' " father. This would prevent the inheritance of the newly adopted son of any property from his natural father, but it had the advantage of preserving the adoptee's "oikos", commonly translated as "household" but incorporating ideas of kinship and property also. Although the preservation of the paternal "oikos" is usually felt to be the reason behind the whole practice of the "epiklerate", the historian David Schaps argues that in fact, this was not really the point of the practice. Instead, he argues, that it was the practice of adoption that allowed the preservation of an "oikos". Schaps feels that the reason the "epiklerate" evolved was to ensure that orphaned daughters were married. Other historians, including Sarah Pomeroy, feel that the children of an "epikleros" were considered to transmit the paternal grandfather's "oikos". The historian Cynthia Patterson agrees, arguing that adoption may have seemed unnecessary, especially if the "epikleros" and her husband gave their son the name of the maternal grandfather. She argues that too much attention has been paid to the patrilineal aspects of the "oikos", and that there was probably less emphasis on this in actual Athenian practice and more on keeping a household together as a productive unit.