To be a woman in antiquity meant to live in a male dominated society, whether Greek, Spartan, Roman, or Egyptian. Women and girls were ruled first by their fathers followed by their husbands. The patriarchal society of the antiquity restricted women's movements within society and the public. Women held very little freedom or financial independence, if any for some such as lower class women and slaves. Women also faced enormous sexual repression from society being simply meant for the purpose of bearing children. As regarded by their male counterparts, women were not only physically but mentally inferior to men. Women were seen as erratic and emotional creatures, unable to make sensible decisions. Yet in the same instance, women were seen as …show more content…
Beyond gender bias, women's lives were also affected by factors such as social and class status, family heritage, wealth, marriage, religion, and location and time frames of the Greek, Spartan, Roman, and Egyptian antiquity. The overall lives of women in antiquity were drastically different than the lives led by the men in Greek, Spartan, Roman, and Egyptian antiquity. Women faced unrealistic ideals placed upon them by their male counterparts. Women were meant to be unseen and unheard while remaining in charge of and within the domestic residence. A virtuous woman was one who graciously oversaw the domestic tasks, bore children for her husband, and remained out of the public eye and thus gossip or suspicion (Plant p. 84-86). Greek women faced such ideals to the fullest while Roman women were regarded as naturally more virtuous. Roman women were allowed a slight amount more freedom than the ideal Greek woman, although such freedom came with the requirement of guardianship. In the case of a father's death, Roman women remained a ward of their appointed guardian until such a time where they produced three children. This release from guardianship also bestowed upon women financial independence. The Institutes composed by Gaius, contain passages which describe the terms and …show more content…
Generally it was only the lucky upper class women who received any form of formal education including reading and writing (Lefkowitz and Fant section 252). Through the recorded history of antiquity there have been instances in which women have received formal educations in reading and writing such as women like Eurydice and Heraidous (Lefkowitz and Fant sections 251, 253; Plant p. 43, 44). There are also surviving works of poetry from ancient Greek and Roman women writers such as Sappho, Erinna, Terentia, and Anyte (Plant p. 10-28, 48-52, 56-60). Women traditionally were educated by their mothers in domestic tasks and child rearing. The goal of a girl's education was to prepare her for her roles in marriage and rearing a family, not to stimulate any form of intellectual development. Yet through the powers of deduction it can be concluded that women must have been educated in reading and writing to a certain extent, most certainly the wealthy and upper class, for the simple fact that women could not otherwise read letters written to them by their husbands, nor write poetry. Legally women were unable to hold official political roles, vote on political matters, or enter contracts or financial transactions worth more than medimnos of barley, with the exception of marriage. Differences are also seen
Gender Roles in Ancient Greek Society Throughout history, the roles of women and men have always differed to some degree. In ancient Greece, the traditional roles were clear-cut and defined. Women stayed home to care for children and do housework while men left to work. This system of society was not too far off the hunter gatherer concept where women cared for the house and the men hunted.
Women in ancient Greece are an interesting subject and only so much is known about the exact day to day lives of them however from what records remain it would seem that they were kept at a relatively low level on the social hierarchy. Even in Pericles ' Funeral Speech which seems to be an almost utopian discretion of aspects of Greek life Pericles himself states that “Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad.” Pericles states that the greatest of women should be the ones whom are not noticed but still preform there tasks while not catching the attention of men. Adding to this even the great philosopher Aristotle bags on the women of Greece simply by stating that ”female [souls are] inoperative” With this simple statement Aristotle makes it seem that women are somehow broken and can never live up to the same standards as men. Even Xenophon, The Economist rambles on...
Most classical society’s political and social organization revolved around the idea of patriarchy, a male dominated social system. This system exacerbated the inherit difference between men and woman and assigned gender roles based on these observations. Men were generally regarded as superior to woman therefore given greater religious and political roles as well as more legal rights. As the natural inverse, women were subordinated and seen as week; their main roles reproductive and domestic. Information about patriarchy in the classical era, though abundant, was, for the most part, written by men, therefore history does not give us an accurate depiction of women’s viewpoints. Four societies of the classical era, India, China, Greece, and Rome, adopted a patriarchal system, however, due to many factors, each developed identifiable characteristics.
In Ancient Greece, women had little to no freedom in their lives. For instance, they had no role in politics, leaving that completely to men, were expected to stay indoors for the majority of their lives doing household work because they were under the control of a male relative, usually being their father or husband, and they were not allowed to study medicine. These standards were set by great writers such as Aristotle who wrote of women being inferior to men. He believed women were more emotional, which is why they would be useless in politics, and they were more deceptive and mischievous. Because only men were doctors, many women were dying during childbirth due to the fact that they felt uncomfortable about having a man handle their pregnancy.
In ancient Greek society women lived hard lives on account of men's patriarch built communities. Women were treated as property. Until about a girl’s teens she was "owned" by her father or lived with her family. Once the girl got married she was possessed by her husband along with all her belongings. An ancient Greece teenage girl would marry about a 30-year-old man that she probably never met before. Many men perceived women as being not being human but creatures that were created to produce children, please men, and to fulfill their household duties. A bride would not even be considered a member of the family until she produced her first child. In addition to having a child, which is a hard and painful task for a teenage girl in ancient civilization to do, the husband gets to decide if he wants the baby. A baby would be left outside to die if the husband was not satisfied with it; usually this would happen because the child was unhealthy, different looking, or a girl.
There isn’t enough literature from this time period from the lower and middle classes of society, and the view of women we have comes from writings of the upper class males. As much of an enigma that the women of Athens were, it is clear that “women were for the most part legal nonentities,” (O’Neal 117) that were denied any association and participation in the intellectual life of their city. The women were not involved in getting an education, and never learned to read or write. O’Neal writes, “The principal spokesmen of fifth century Athens, Pericles and Thucydides, disdained Athenian women.” (O’Neal 117) Based on their writing, and on surmountable evidence, it can be assumed that women had only two roles in Athens - a wife, or a mother. A girl was ideally married at 14 or 15 years of age, and there was necessity that the bride was a virgin, otherwise she was shamed and sold into
From the role of the wily seductress, to the submissive housewife, to the raging warrior, women were a focal point of Ancient Greek works. Although they are often looked over and considered, the roles they played in their culture were undeniably important. Women may have been thought to have far less worth than a man, however, their undeniable power and influence in Greek society cannot be overlooked. The substantial position they held is verified in numerous texts of the era, including the works of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
Men, at the time, created our representation of the traditional Greek woman by how the visualized in artworks to how they were perceived in literature. Women remained secondary to many and were denied a public voice. They were treated like adolescents. Marriages were arranged by the dominant male figure in the family. When that man passed the female relative did not receive her family inheritance generally, it was passed on to her husband instead. As for a woman’s social life, they hardly had one. A woman’s duties were confined to the indoors catering to the household/family need such as cooking, cleaning and raising children. A woman required special permission if she desired to go out of those
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.
Women in this society could, to some degree, assert power and influence in the home. The everyday life of the “ideal” Greek woman included child bearing and rearing, cleaning, both weaving cloth and making clothes, cooking and supervising slaves and other domestic tasks, (Xenophon, On Household Management).
Their limitations amongst society can also be noticed by the amount of education that they are entitled to. Plato’s Republic mentions how the role of women is determined by the status of their spouse. For instance, if a woman were to be the wife of a guard, then she would be expected to live at the level of that status, too. She is expected to be able to contribute to society a great deal more rather than stay at home and take care of her children and household.
Women in Ancient Rome did not have equal legal status as their husbands, fathers, or any other male figures in the society. Women were not allowed to make legal transactions without her husband’s or father’s consent. This showed how men were superior and controlled the money in the family. A woman was permanently attached to her family of birth and her husband’s family, if she got married.
Families were the basis of Roman society while the dominant males-paterfamilias, “held absolute authority over his children” (Spielvogel 129) and others in his household . Roman citizens were classified with three names to differentiate them from other families, but women were usually only known by one. “Females shall remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority”, (Spielvogel 119) upper-class women were never granted true freedom, but they started making breakthroughs and found ways around the “guardianship” of the males in their households.
Women in roman societies were seen as the home maker, they took care of the home while men worked from morning until noon then lounged in community pools and saw entertainment until evening when they returned home. At this time, it was the women's responsibility to make sure everything was in order and children, if any, were to not bother the husband/father. Women's education was basic, yet schooling was non-existent, women were taught by their fathers and mothers and were not sent to school. In Roman times life as a woman was hardly eventful consisting of mundane activities and chores. Like Roman times in ancient Greece women were not seen equal to men they were not allowed to own property, vote or be involved in politics, they were not equal yet they were educated equal to boys.