On the equivalence of two conditions for the existence of transversals

There are two conditions which are known to be necessary for the existence of a transversal in any family of sets, but both are sufficient only if the family is countable. This paper proves that these conditions are always equivalent to each other. The families which are compatible with these conditions are characterised, in the sense that each of their subfamilies possesses a transversal if it satisfies the conditions. Using this, a conjecture of Podewski and Steffens is proved.