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Role of women in athens compared to sparta
Role of women in athens compared to sparta
Lives of ancient athenian women
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Lysistrata In her essay on, “Athenian Women,” Sarah Ruden points out that Aristophanes in Lysistrata portray women as supportive of Athenian institutions and eager to save them. But she cautions, “To do this now they must flout law, religion, and every notion of public decency – and this is definitely no reflection on women’s attitudes, but mere satirical farce and fantasy” (Ruden 107). An important element of “satirical farce” in this spirit would be a heavy use of repetition to make people laugh at the weakness being satirized. One example would not be enough, and the audience might not be amused by less than three or four examples. So in important episodes that fill out the action of the play, we have 4 examples of women beating guards, …show more content…
She offers to go home only if the men end the war. Cinesias decides to stay there and try to make love with Myrrhine. She tells Cinesias that she needs to get a mattress first before they start and leaves. She comes back with the mattress but realizes she forgot pillows and leaves again. At this point, it is abundantly clear she is teasing Cinesias. She comes back with the pillow and lays down on the mattress next to Cinesias. He assumes Myrrhine is ready and he goes to kiss her but she stands back up and yelled sheets! She forgot sheets so she leaves again for the third time. Cinesias is becoming angry. Now it is clearly obvious that she is teasing her husband by denying him sex. Myrrhine returns with the blanket and asked Cinesias if he wants oil as well. He tells her no but he chooses to leave again. This game that Myrrhine is playing with her husband is part of the sex strike plan. She is making the situation harder for the men who desperately want sex. She returns to Cinesias with the oil and gives him a sample. Cinesias dislikes the smell of it and tells Myrrhine he smells delay. She jokingly responses with, “Well, shame on me! I brought the one from Rhodes,” and leaves for the final time. Cinesias is furious and wants his wife to stay put. She returns with another bottle of oil. Cinesias yells at Myrrhine to stop moving around and just have sex. Her plan worked and ends the game by telling Cinesias, “Honey, don’t forget: You’re voting for a treaty,” and she leaves the scene for
Our evidence concerning the roles of women within the Athenian state comes through a variety of media; historiography discussing aspects of Athenian law and customs, orators, and imaginative literature such as comic and tragic theatre. Scholars in the past have selectively manipulated these different sources in order to support their predetermined arg...
Lysistrata, on the contrary shows women acting bravely and even aggressively against men who seem resolved on ruining the city- state by prolonging a pointless and excessively expending reserves stored in the Acropolis. The men being away at war would come home when they could, sexually relieve them selves and then leave again to precede a meaningless war. The women challenge the masculine role model to preserve traditional way of life in the community. When the women become challenged themselves they take on the masculine characteristics and defeat the men physically, mentally but primarily strategically. Proving that neither side benefits from it, just that one side loses more than the other. It gives the impression that the women are heroes and the men are ignorant, which contradicts what Euripides said but is chiefly written to entertain.
The Lysistrata of Aristophanes Aristophanes was a satirist who produced Lysistrata around 413 BC when the news of Athen’s warships had been destroyed near Sicily. For twenty-one years, while Athens was engaged in war, he relentlessly and wittliy attacked the war, the ideals of the war, the war party and the war spirit. This risked his acceptance and his Athenian citizenship. Lysistrata is probably the oldest comedy which has retained a place in modern theatre. It primarily deals with two themes, war and the power of sexuality.. Lysistrata (an invented name meaning, She Who Puts an End to War) has summoned the women of Athens to meet her at the foot of Acropolis. She puts before them the easy invitation that they must never lie again with their husbands until the war is ended. At first, they shudder and withdraw and refuse until, with the help of the women from Sparta and Thebes, they are impelled to agree. The women seize the Acropolis from which Athens is funding the war. After days of sexually depriving their men in order to bring peace to there communities. They defeat back in an attack from the old men who had remained in Athens while the younger men are on their crusade. When their husbands return from battle, the women reject sex and stand guard at Acropolis. The sex strike, portrayed in risqué episodes, finally pressure the men of Athens and Sparta to consent to a peace treaty. Ancient Greece in 431 BC was not a nation.
...tics. Her function in society as a heroine is portrayed throughout the play. However, the reader must consider that the play is representative of a fictitious comedy and offered no relief from war "the war continued for seven more exhausting years, until Athens's last fleet was defeated" (Page 467, Paragraph 2). Furthermore, Lysistrata is the "mastermind" of the "sex strike;" however, she does not take part in it other than directing orders. Also, due to her apparent lack of sexual desire, Lysistrata is given more respect by the men of Athens. The play's actions, characters and Lysistrata's actions all indicate her demonstration of a bold leader, unrepresentative of a traditional Athenian woman.
In the Spartan community, everything was aimed towards the betterment of the society as a whole. Spartan boys trained as warriors beginning at the age of seven. The women were given the most important task: creating warriors.
Feminism in Greece today reflects a gradual increase in the importance of the role of women in the Greek society and is similar to the status of women in most developed countries. Feminism in ancient Greece was much more complicated due to the perceived lower status of women vs. men. On the one hand, women were objects and possessions with no rights. But on the other hand, they were central to the actions of the men around and often carried great informal influence. They were the weaker gender, but were also seen as people who could easily persuade men. They often had to achieve a sort of balancing act between being an object and being an influencer. This contrasts with today, where women have gradually moved away from being an object and their
I first read Lysistrata back in high school and I really loved the play because not only was it comical but I love the sexual innuendos that are mixed into this play. Anyway, just like Antigone, where there was main female role, in Lysistrata, Lysistrata was also the main female role in the play which is funny being that in this time period women basically had no basic rights, but here these women have the leading roles. What is also funny is that even though women had no rights, it was the women in Lysistrata who aid in ending the war rather quickly. Another thing I noticed was that when Lysistrata was bringing up the plan to the women that came they were all for the plan with the thought of the plan whatever it is in ending the war, but
Aristophanes play Lysistrata takes place during the Peloponnesian War and the women of Greece are tired of their men being at war. Greek women want to preserve the traditional way of life in their community. With this in mind, Lysistrata calls all the women of Greece together and devises a plan. She argues that if the women all participate in two activities, their men will end the war. Her proposals are that the women hold a sexual strike against the men.
From what I learned about male and female conditions in Ancient Greece during my years of study, I should decide first if I would be a woman or a man in both Athenian or Spartan situation. My destiny would be deeply different, and in consequence, my decisional power would change as well. By the way, I decided to imagine myself as a woman in order to be more objective and concrete on my impressions.
The play was considered comic by the ancient Athenians because of its rhyming lyricism, its song and dance, its bawdy puns, but most of all because the notion and methods of female empowerment conceived in the play were perfectly ridiculous. Yet, as is the case in a number of Aristophanes’ plays, he has presented an intricate vision of genuine human crisis. In true, comic form Aristophanes superficially resolves the play’s conflicts celebrating the absurdity of dramatic communication. It is these loose threads that are most rife with tragedy for modern reader. By exploring an ancient perspective on female domesticity, male political and military power, rape, and efforts to maintain the integrity of the female body, we can liberate our modern dialogue.
Euripides, one of Ancient Greece’s most famous playwrights, could be considered as one of the earliest supporters of women’s rights. With plays such as Alcestis and Medea, he clearly puts an emphasis on the condition of women, and even integrates them in the Chorus of the latter play, a feat that was not often done in Ancient Greece. Throughout the years, it has been argued that the two central characters in each of those plays offer conflicting representations of women in those times, and I can safely say that I agree with that argument. I will expand on my view by pointing out an important similarity between Alcestis and Medea, followed by a key difference, and will finish it off by contrasting them with the Ancient Greek depiction of an “ideal woman.”
“Lysistrata” is a tale which is centered around an Athenian woman named Lysistrata and her comrades who have taken control of the Acropolis in Athens. Lysistrata explains to the old men how the women have seized the Acropolis to keep men from using the money to make war and to keep dishonest officials from stealing the money. The opening scene of “Lysistrata” enacts the stereotypical and traditional characterization of women in Greece and also distances Lysistrata from this overused expression, housewife character. The audience is met with a woman, Lysistrata, who is furious with the other women from her country because they have not come to discuss war with her. The basic premise of the play is, Lysistrata coming up with a plan to put an end to the Peloponnesian War which is currently being fought by the men. After rounding up the women, she encourages them to withhold sex until the men agree to stop fighting. The women are difficult to convince, although eventually they agree to the plan. Lysistrata also tells the women if they are beaten, they may give in, since sex which results from violence will not please the men. Finally, all the women join Lysistrata in taking an oath to withhold sex from their mates. As a result of the women refraining from pleasing their husbands until they stop fighting the war, the play revolves around a battle of the sexes. The battle between the women and men is the literal conflict of the play. The war being fought between the men is a figurative used to lure the reader to the actual conflict of the play which is the battle between men and women.
However in Lysistrata the women needed to get involved to resolve the war between the Spartans and the Athenians. This was a huge red flag for the audience in Athens because of the Athenian attitude towards women. Treated as almost a second class citizen to men, the women in Lysistrata took an active role in persuading the men of Athens to find peace with the Spartans by way of abstinence. Particularly Lysistrata got a group of women together that disliked the current suffering caused by the war and convinced them to not sleep with their husbands until they decided to work towards peace.”...imagine. We’re at home, beautifully made up, and we walk around the house wearing sheer lawn shifts… and we keep our distance … they’ll make peace soon enough”(p.146). Using their sexuality as a weapon towards the men in Lysistrata the women effectively forced the men to change their political attitudes. This further proved to undermine the democracy by showing the audience that even the women noticed that the current system was causing problems and it needed to be changed. So much so that women were willing to make their husbands suffer until an agreeable result was achieved. Once an agreement was achieved between both sides the Spartans and Athenians drank together and celebrated their new found peace. This gave the audience another taste of what it would have been like if the war was over. Using the contrast
Not only does Aristophanes utilize irony in scenes to transform political attitudes, but he also uses humorous satire. During the sex boycott, one of Lysistrata's followers, Myrrhine, seduces her husband, Cinesias, stalling the entire time to heighten his desire so he will commit to peace. However, when Myrrhine asks if he will, his reply is "I'll think about it" so she runs away leaving him "in torment." The fact that Cinesias will say anything in order to have sex satirizes men's weaknesses. In addition, the scene foreshadows the other men's reactions as they fight to sign the peace treaty so they can return home with their wives and end the oath.
... convey deeper themes of life and death, the struggles between power and class structure and also the societal differences between men and women. Aristophanes uses humor to hook his audience into his play, and then undermines the surface humor with much bigger thematic issues. If this play had simply been about women withholding sex for other reasons such as wanting more money for shopping or other frivolous ideas it would not then be considered a satiric comedy. Satire requires more than physical humor. An issue must be raised such as the life and death theme that is seen in the war in Lysistrata, and a solution must then be made. Aristophanes created the women in the beginning to be bickering, unintelligent, and self-centered people. But in the end it was their idea and compromise that ended the war.