Chapter 2 examines the aspects of early twentieth-century Greek social history that were mostly connected with the social and cultural meanings of mental illness and health care: urbanisation, social relationships and welfare, gender roles and family functions. It shows that Greece in the first decades of the twentieth century was a rural country with urban and industrial enclaves, but experienced problems and concerns similar to those of more urbanised and industrialised countries. These were addressed by private philanthropy rather than state welfare. The basic institution for care and support remained the family, in which gender and age roles were regulated by the ideology of separate spheres and domesticity, but in practice were far more complex.