During the Classical period the household, oikos, continued to constitute the basic unit of the polis. The polis consisted of people, animals and property, and for the majority of residents came to represent the space of production and consumption. It both ensured the safety of its members and guaranteed the continuation of the family (and by extension the polis itself) through the various basic social institutions such as birth, marriage and death, religious celebrations, and symposia.

The oikos was now less important than it had been in the past, for its male members, particularly those who were citizens. While in the past it had had determined the political role of its head in the community, under the new democratic dispensation it played only an indirect role. So, while all adult males born and bred in Attica were seen as citizens under the law and in the polis, noble and wealthy residents were still able to assert and maintain their difference through various new social expressions: donations horegia , symposia, public speaking and philosophising. These were just some of the ways in which the oligoi 'the few' could distance themselves from 'the many' oi polloi. And so, although the oikos lost some of the significance it had had in the Archaic period, for one category of citizens at least, it continued to determine success as it secured economic well-being. So even though the majority now derived their identity from the polis, for the elite the oikos continued to perform this function.