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The role of women in ancient Greek society
Ancient greece women in society
1st century greece attitude toward women
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Recommended: The role of women in ancient Greek society
Julian Mayugba
Professor Antonio Acevedo
HIS 210-ONR01
16 February 2017
Unit 2 AS2-Part 2: Women in Ancient Greece
Women in ancient Athens lived a highly restricted life. They could not leave the house unescorted, socialize with men that were not in the family or married, and they could not work in the government. The story, “A Husband’s Defense,” tells the story of Euphiletus, a man who had murdered his wife’s lover. The story lines up with both Xenophon’s “On Men and Women,” and Aristotle’s “On a Good Wife.”
Euphiletus’ wife was an “ideal” wife at first because she was a clever housewife who was economical and “exact in the management of everything;” These are traits found in “On Men and Women” and “On a Good Wife.” Euphiletus’ wife was considered a “bad” wife because she was not loyal to her husband and had an affair. In ancient Athenian society, women were not supposed to talk to males who were not their father, brother, or husband. She had
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Athenian women in the textbook were described as having a restricted life. Men in Athenian society had great sexual liberty, where multiple partners, sexual relationships with teenage boys, and prostitutes were not looked down on. These reflections of Athenian women do match what is in the textbook. According to Xenophon and Aristotle, women were inferior to men, and because of this, they had more restrictions. To conclude, Athenian society imposed heavy restrictions on the women. These restrictions were violated by Euphiletus’ wife, thus resulting in the murder of Eratosthenes. Without reading the full story, based on the restrictions set on women and the era where the murder had taken place, I believe that the murder would have been
Cole's article is not to attack Aristotle on his views of where a woman should be placed within the social and political order, in accordance to the Classic Greek period. Her intrigue is within "surveying some central values of that particular social and political institution," (Sterba 79). At first she begins with Aristotle's view on gender and class in ethics. Making a definite point among the social/political class, ancient Greek women and slaves were only allowed their male citizens to think for them. Being dependent on men silences the women and slaves without a voice to speak out, for the women work while the men socialize with others, the men assume that the women do not need a voice. According to Aristotle, even a woman's virtue is to be subservient to all males. As a part of common life the woman is considered the pack horse and the mother to raise the children, for the men. With all the work that women put into their specific households, some education and training would mature from the experience. It was thought again by Aristotle within; Deliberation, Education, and Emancipation, that woman did not possess the aptitude for practical reasoning. For whomever possessed practical reasoning carried with them authority on their decisions and the action pending. From these three classic Greek examples of how women were considered mentally and treated physically, the author Cole provides a progressive outlook of how women could have gained social and political power in a society of male dominant figures.
" While this view may have been extreme even for the Greeks, they were convinced of the physical and intellectual inferiority of women. Thus, they believed that it was better for all--the woman included--that a wife should stay in the home far removed from the complicated business of the "man's world."... ... middle of paper ... ...
We should also discuss about how women were generally treated in the days of the Symposium. We read in the beginning of the Symposium that Eryximachus wants to get rid of the women so that the men may “stick to conversation”. (Symposium 176.e3-177.a2) This invokes the idea that women are unable to have a meaningful conversation. This could be justified because ancient Greeks thought our (women) emotions get in the way. The ancient Greeks (men) had wives for the purpose of producing babies. They had boyfriends for the ...
Typically in Athenian society, women took care of the things in the household while men, although still retaining the final say over matters of the household, focused most of their attention on the world outside the home. In the plays Assemblywomen and Lysistrata, Aristophanes explores roles of men and women in society, specifically what would happen if women were to take on the roles of men. Looking at these two plays about Athenian society as metaphors for marital life, it shows that men and women were incapable of having balanced power in their relationships. In both of these plays, the men were unable to keep their own sense of power when the women took over politics, and they eventually moved into the submissive role of women. In Lysistrata, the women used their seduction to gain power. Similarly, in Assemblywomen, the women came into power through deception and clever planning. This paper explores why women rarely stepped up to take power; how they would gain power when they would step up to claim it; and how the men would respond once confronted with a woman in power. This all serves to show that in Athens, a marriage of man and woman could not exist with mutuality of power – rather, one (typically the man) would dominate, while the other (typically the woman) took the submissive role.
Recently in my class, we have been discussing different civilizations and how women were treated during that time. While reading the books, I was able to read things and relate them to notes that I had recently taken. Something in particular that I found that correlated was in chapter four of the book. This chapter talked about women’s role in Athens, which was motherhood. We had just talked about this in class, and how men were able to divorce women with no public humiliation, if the wife was not able to conceive a
Athenian social patterns had a positive impact on society. Women had few rights were viewed as less then men and ruled by them in marriage. A woman should think of her husband’s wishes as laws for her as a good will, as
According to research, the role of women in classical Greece was extremely limited. Men and women were segregated all over in the Greek society, even in the home (Source 9). Women were secluded in their homes to the point of not being able to leave their own quarters except on special religious occasions or as necessity dictated (Source 10). All women were tightly controlled and confined to the home to insure that their husbands were provided legitimate male heirs. Beyond this, women had no true value (Source 6). Clearly, male domination in Greek society was like enslavement to women. A marriage contract dated 92 B.C. can be located in Women's Life in Greece & Rome by Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant which defines unacceptable behavior within the union of marriage. The document requires that both husband and wife be chaste within the context of the household, but although nothing prevents ...
Looking at Greek society today, it is quite a relief that this view is no longer held. Women aren’t expected to be obedient, mindless, sniveling little creatures. They are able to be independent— they do not have to live up to a standard that men could easily betray. These women are free, no longer subjected to the unfair prejudices that man branded upon them during an ancient, patriarchal society.
One can hardly deny that in Euripides’ plays women are often portrayed as weak, uncertain, and torn between what they must do and what they can bring themselves to do. Other women appear to be the root of grave evils, or simply perpetrators of heinous crimes. In a day when analysis of characters and plot had yet to be invented, it is easy to see why he might have been thought to be very much against women. However, when looking back with current understanding of what Euripides was doing at the time, armed with knowledge of plot devices and Socratic philosophy, this argument simply does not hold up. In fact, a very strong argument can be made to the opposite, that Euripides was in fact very much in support of women’s rights, and thought they were treated unfairly.
Athenian women were relegated to the status of child bearers and keepers of the household. There was no room for personal expression or freedom and the strict
Women had very few rights, they lived as prisoners, serving men 24 hours a day. Women were sheltered from society, restricted to their husbands and their husbands houses, crying out for help and justice but there is no one to there to hear their screams. In the play Antigone when the title character had to sneak out of the house to meet up with Ismene. Ancient Greek men ruled a lot like over protective fathers with teenage daughters. Men were also scared of women gaining confidence and begin thinking on their own or worse taking action or speaking out against men, like in the play Antigone where Antigone confronts Creon by burying Polyneices after Creon strictly stated that no one bury him. If someone were to bury him, the whole Polis would stone them to death. When Creon found out that someone buried Polyneices, he did not even consider that it could have been a women that did it.
In ancient Greece, women of wealthy families lived a life of segregation amongst the walls of their own homes. Due to the rapid expansion of Athens and more people moving from rural spaces to urban spaces; the duties of women moved from outdoor jobs, like agriculture, to indoor and less important jobs, like taking care of all the house duties (Pomeroy 1975, p71). Despite the fact that there were a number of roles that women played in the Athenian society, including prostitutes and priestesses, Xenophon believed that the most respectable work for an Athenian woman was to be a model wife. This main role was divided into three sub-roles that had to be done in order to be the perfect wife: take care of children, look after the shared property and to be responsible for her servants.
Greek and Roman women lived in a world where strict gender roles were given; where each person was judged in terms of compliance with gender-specific standards of conduct. Generally, men were placed above women in terms of independence, control and overall freedom. Whereas men lived in the world at large, active in public life and free to come and go as they willed, women's lives were sheltered. Most women were assigned the role of a homemaker, where they were anticipated to be good wives and mothers, but not much of anything else. The roles of women are thoroughly discussed in readings such as The Aeneid, Iliad, Sappho poetry, and Semonides' essay.
Three Different Views Of Women In Greek Society The role of women in ancient Greek life was considered to be insignificant compared to that of Greek men. However, in tragedies, women were frequently written as main characters, revealing insights on how women were treated and thought of in society. Many famous Greek plays contain numerous well-written, multifaceted, female characters. Each female character takes upon herself, the role of villain, the role of victim, and the role of heroine. Euripides (485-406 BC) is considered to be the most socially critical of all the ancient Greek tragedians. The Trojan Women (415 BC) has long been considered a fresh artistic depiction of the Trojan War and a penetrating portrayal of the barbaric deeds of Euripides' own countrymen, the Athenians, towards the women and children of the people they conquered in war. Due to the fact of similarities between authors Aeschylus and Euripides, writing in the same place and time, one often make the mistake of presuming their stance are the same on the particular subject. It would be a mistake to expect Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Medea to express identical views on the subject; each author had a distinctive way. The opinions of these two writers on this subject are in fact different. Aeschylus’ plays revolved around ethics, and usually he presented as impartially as possible, by asking the audience to judge the ethical questions for themselves. Agamemnon is not actually about Agamemnon as much as is about Clytemnestra, his wife. Aeschylus has created a woman, with whom his audience could sympathize, and whose pain felt real to them. This was no small attempt, bearing in mind the fact that in ancient Greece women were looked same as slaves. Euripid...
...o Greek polis ever granted them. Athenian women, in contrast, were confined to the home, except for infrequent occasions such as celebrations or funerals. As full citizens of a state that relied on substantial male political participation, Athenian husbands possessed nearly total authority over their households and everyone living in them. A woman was protected by her father or male guardian until she married; if divorced or widowed, she returned to him Virginity before marriage was highly prized for both men and women.