Bernini, after his father died, had the power of the male head of the family–in legal terms in Rome-
-the patria potestas. Out of socioeconomic necessity, fathers routinely made extreme decisions over the destinies of their powerless children. They forced them into painful, loveless marriages or into the cruel celibacy and social isolation of unwanted religious vocations.
Under the legal shield of patria potestas fathers at times even forced adolescent sons to be castrated so as to prepare them for lucrative careers as angelic-voiced castrati singers. The father could sell a child into slavery. The same degree of power could be and was legally exerted upon wives by their husbands, and by brothers over unmarried sisters, in the absence of their fathers. A husband could legally imprison his wife in his own private jail for certain crimes like adultery and theft.
Bernini, His Life and His Rome by Franco Mormando p. 92
You’ll find a thorough explanation of the Roman patria potestas in the blog Women in the Ancient World.
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