To the ancient Greeks, Love and Sex were just as important as to any culture. While their concepts of what is love and sex and there purposes differed from our modern Western concepts of the same topics, they were also similar in many ways. One can study Greek literature and art and find plenty of evidence to support arguments about how the Greeks felt about love, sex, and homosexuality, it is often a one sided description provided to us from our ancient sources. Nearly all we have left to us is the reflections of only half of the Ancient Greeks, but surely there was more to the story. One should attempt to understand as many views of the culture as possible, and one of the most important distinctions in any culture is to determine the differences between the genders. The difficulty in attempting to understand Ancient Greek culture from a female perspective is the lack of evidence provided by a feminine source. Therefore, one must study what the men left to us about femininity and its role in love and sex and do the best we can to at least provide a look into how a male dominated culture viewed and helped shape femininity. Greek women were expected to remain chaste until they were married, their main purpose sexually is to receive a man’s seed to bear children, although some references allude to some women pursuing their own sexual needs.
An easy starting place to find the Greek concept of love and sex is in the “Speech of Aristophanes” found in Plato’s Symposium. The speech outlines the origins of the concept in love and why we feel it, namely that humans were originally round males, females, and androgynous beings that were split in half by the gods as their power grew, and since then humans have been searching for love because...
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...eir children. It is not unthinkable that this view was strongly enforced in Ancient Greek society, as we have ample evidence that “women’s lives were much more restricted, tied closely to the home and family, with little contact with the outside world.” Thus, the love lives of Ancient Greek women were probably tied primarily to that of their husband, but there is more than a certain possibility that they were able to pursue other sources of love in secret in order to keep respectability.
Works Cited
Amos, HD.; Lang, AGP, These Were the Greeks, 146
Anonymous, “Hymn to Aphrodite” in the Homeric Hymns, 37
Demosthenes, “On Wives and Hetairai,” Ancient History Sourcebook (August 1998); accessed
November 23, 2013
Plato, the “Speech of Aristophanes” in the Symposium, 27
Xenophon, “On Men and Women,” Ancient History Sourcebook (August 1998); accessed
November 23, 2013
Myths reveal to us the experiences of women living in the patriarchal society and we gain the symbol value accorded to women and we came to realize what the term "Woman" meant to the ancient Greek man.
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
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Aristophanes thinks that a human’s love is clearly “a lack” – a lack of one’s other half- and having no meant to satisfy themselves they begin to die. Zeus, having failed to foresee this difficulty repairs the damage by inventing sexual reproduction (191 b-c). Any “embracements” of men with men or of women with women would of course be sterile – though the participants would at least “have some satiety of their union and a relief,” (191 c) and therefore would be able to carry on the work of the world. Sex, therefore, is at this stage a drive, and the object is defined only as human. Sexual preferences are to emerge only as the human gains experience, enabling them to discover what their “original form” had been.
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 ...
The women were the only ones able to bear children. Also, if they were forced to stay in the house, men could have greater control over their wives, and not have to worry about them having affairs. The second important trait was virginity before marriage. Its importance to the Greek culture lies in the fear of a woman’s power. The men of the society felt it best that a woman remained a virgin until she was married; however this same attribute was not required of a man.
Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered as a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies or music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being.
In the Bronze Age, early Greek’s political concern was largely on defense. During this time, while the men were serving in battles and war, women were expected to “bear future warriors” (Pomeroy 18), similarly to what Zeus enforced. Heroic Greek society demanded women to be married upon reaching maturity, and to begin having children immediately. The earliest writings of ancient Greece, usually accredited to Homer, show murderous arguments between men over women. Pomeroy writes, “It was a quarrel with Agamemnon over a valuable slave woman that precipitated Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting at Troy and provided the theme for the Iliad.” (Pomeroy 25) Later, we will see how lawmakers enforced the role of women to prevent competition among
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.
Pausanias brings up an excellent way to think about Love. He explains that love can be broken down into two types, that of Common and Heavenly love. The common love is that when a man and a woman join merely to satisfy their sexual desires. On the other hand the heavenly love is the type that occurs when two people are attracted to each other with a strong force that goes past the physical appearance but comes from deep within as if from the soul. Although Plato presents examples of the two loves with having the common love as if only happening between a man and a woman and the heavenly love happening between a man and a man, there is not enough proof in the text to say that this if what the whole of Athens really believed.
Walcot, P. “Greek Attitudes towards Women: The Mythological Evidence.” Greece & Rome 2nd ser. 31.1 (Apr., 1984): 37-47. Cambridge University Press on Behalf of The Classical Association Article Stable. Web.
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