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Gender in ancient Greece
The role of women in ancient Greece
Gender in ancient Greece
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With respect to their differing philosophical beliefs, philosophers Plato and Aristotle would ultimately argue with respect to women and their place in society, the home, and their relationship with politics. Although, Augustine was not a philosopher, he would often make references about women. Most often, Augustine would abide by the teachings of his religion in explaining women and their place not only the confines of a marriage, but also, in relation to God. The importance of their views with respect to women, politics and religion have arguably shaped the ideals and social morals of current Western thought and ideologies.
Women in Society and the Household
With respect to women and their place in Greek society, it was essentially based on the family unit. Initially, the household and/or Oikos were composed of both free individuals and slaves. Basically, the Oikos were under the dominion of the head of the household, and were bound by a set of complex family relationships. “The household covered not only the members of the nuclear family, but the whole physical and economic unit, including property, and land, and there was strict limitation of succession by inheritance.”1 Interestingly, with respect inheritance, marriage and property, the primary concern was for the preservation of the family, their survival and the survival of the Oikos. “Typically a man would marry when the property was divided on death…and would eventually establish his own Oikos…thirty or thirty five appears to have been the normal age for a man to marry.”2 It was stated in Athenian law that sons succeed their fathers, and all sons were to share the inheritance. However, a family with no sons, the inheritance would most often be left to the daug...
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31 Blundell, Women in Classical Athens, 12-3.
32 Fred Miller. 2009. Aristotle’s Political Theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/ (Accessed July 6 )
33 Stark, Feminist Interpretations of Augustine, 57.
34 Stark, Feminist Interpretations of Augustine, 56-7.
35 Bella Vivante, Daughters of Gaia: Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Greenwood Publishing Group Inc. 2007) 116.
36 Vivante, Daughters of Gaia, 116-117
37 Chan, Political Philosophy, The Republic Book V
38 Chan, Political Philosophy, The Republic Book V
39 Brown, Plato’s Ethics in the Republic
40 Pomeroy, Spartan Women,61-3.
41 Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 54-5.
42 Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 63.
43 Pomeroy, Spartan Women, 59.
44 Cahn, Political Philosophy, 225.
45 Stark, Feminist Interpretations of Augustine, 57.
In order to support the patriarchal nature of Athenian society, every aspect of their society emphasized the power and significance of males. The oikos, or the household, was the basic foundation of the society with many oikoi coming together to form their polis, Athens. Each oikos consisted of a man, who was the head of that oikos, and everybody else that lived in his household, including his wife, children, and slaves. Since the society greatly stressed masculinity, this was also central to the oikos as well. Adultery’s threat to Athenian society is represented in Lysias’s speech, On the Murder of Eratosthenes. Adultery was seen as a social rather than a personal issue and a more atrocious crime than rape because it demasculinized men and
Aristotle describes the subordination of women to men, speaking of how women must be controlled by men. Later on in his book he mentions how the control of men was in their command and in women their obedience. These concepts were adapted into the lifestyle of Athenian lifestyle, increasingly discriminating women in many ways. They had no role in politics; they were simply supposed to be an object to be seen and not heard.
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.
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.
Lefkowitz, Mary R., and Maureen B. Fant. Women's Life in Greece and Rome. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Lefkowitz, Mary F. and Fant, Maureen. Women in Greece & Rome. Toronto/Sarasota: Samuel-Stevens. 1977. Print
In the home, Athenian women were treated like slaves with no rights. Married women were not people under the law of the Athenians any more than a slave, as they were shifted from one male’s authority to another throughout their lives, powerless to affect anything except through the intercession of another male (To Have Power or to Not Have Power: Athenian vs. Spartan Women). Also, when other males occupied their home; women we told to evacuate the male quarters. Women lived secluded in their own quarters, kept out of the lives of their husbands, working endlessly at the loom or some other repetitive chore. They competed for their husband’s affection against prostitutes, hetairai, and slaves of both genders, including those within their own household. By contrast, Spartan girls exercised publicly alongside boys(and often in the nude) (Fleck).Thus, Spartan women were rarely confined to the home. This is because of the abundance of a workforce and male children serving in the army from seven to
Semonides of Amorgos (c. 625 B.C.) An Essay on Women ( lines 10-12) Semonides of Amorgos. “Women.” c. 7th cent. B.C.E. Trans. Diane Arnson Svarlien. Web. 7 Oct. 2014
Kyle, D. G. (2003). " The Only Woman in All Greece": Kyniska, Agesilaus, Alcibiades and Olympia.
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 ...
of the book. USA: Simon and Schuster, Inc. 2000. The.. Print. The.. Blundell, Sue. Women in Ancient Greece.
The position of women in Classical Athens has often been described as subordinate in comparison to men. Women were categorized in very particular ways: Athenian women were wives, while those who migrated to Athens from other city-states were slaves or prostitutes. Countless literature, from tragedy to comedy and political texts, reinforces the notion that citizen women were meant to serve their husbands within the confines of the oikos and produce legitimate sons in order to further the glory of men while non-Athenian women served their purpose towards men through sexual pleasure. While there may be partial truth to these views, Athenian women played a crucial role in the religious sphere. Religion was directly linked to civic identity and was a fundamental and sacred element of not only a city-state, but to Greece as a whole during the Classical period. Surviving documentation has demonstrated that Athenian women played a vital part to specific religious traditions, such as the participation in the festivals of Thesmophoria and Adonia. Furthermore, there exists evidence that proves women could also acquire the position of priestess for particular cults, a position that increased their reputation and status in a culture that considered them inferior. These marginalized women used religion as a way to carve out a sacred and protect space for themselves, using it to create a sense of freedom in their lives and to bridge the gap in equality between them and the dominant men.
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.
Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato were two of the most influential and knowledgeable ancients in our history. Their contributions and dedication to science, language and politics are immensely valued centuries later. But while the two are highly praised for their works, they viewed several subjects entirely differently, particularly education practices, and human ethics and virtue.