In this document, I’m going to write about women in Sparta and Athens. I realized, they are similar as well as different in several ways. Also, I’m going to study Plutarch’s account of Spartan women in which he supports or doesn’t support the textbook’s presentation; in addition, I’m going to present my opinion of Plutarch’s ideas. And I’m going to talk about any similarities between women then and today.
Spartan women and Athenian women had many differences. While Spartan women were able to do multiple activities outside in and out of their homes, Athenian women were supposed to stay at home and limit their talent to their household. Athenian women in wealthier citizen families only went out of their house for some religious festivals or plays.
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However, non-citizen Athenian women lived more unrestricted, but they had to work much harder, and they lacked of luxury.
On the other hand, Women in Sparta were forbidden from wearing jewelry or ornate clothes, but Athenian women didn’t have this restriction. When in fact, women from Sparta were not physically limited or secluded; Athenian citizen women lived a secluded life where they could only see men that were relatives and tradesmen. Indeed, there was a big different when it comes to pregnancy. Spartan women were supposed to exercise actively because they believed that their hard training stimulated the delivery of healthy children which is true. Nonetheless, Athenian women were guided by the thought that childbirth could be dangerous; as a result, they used to make sacrifices or to visit temples to ask for help from the gods, yet Athenians women didn’t exercise as much to have an easier delivery of their child. By way of contrast, women from Sparta carried military values along with a Spartan system which served to instill the civic qualities of commitment to the state. They were seen much more than simpler care-givers whereas Athenians women were seen as inferior to man. They were portrayed as passive and fragile, and not as able to achieve physical or mental work. Moreover, the Spartan women were expected to train hard, and they …show more content…
participated in rival contests in running and feats of strengths. Spartan believed that in other to find their progeny more vigorous, both parent had to be strong. But Athenians women didn’t have the same believes and values. Additionally, women in Sparta used to be with their sons while they were setting off to battle. Spartan women advised them either victorious, carrying their shield, or dead, being carried on it. Athenians women didn’t use to do such a practice because they weren’t warriors. On the other hand, Athenian women had some practice Women from Sparta didn’t have such as creation of craft, including spinning and weaving, among other services. Spartan women and Athenians women were similar in some features.
Because men spent much of their live in military service, Spartan women in citizen families owned lands and ran the estates. In a like manner, women from Athens were in charge of the household and their families’ belongings because the law gave them rights to protect their husband’s welfares. Also, Athenians women supervised their domestic slaves. Usually, Athenian women used to work together with their friends and servants wool into cloth. Indeed, women in Athens and Sparta used to bring dowries to their husbands at the time of marriage, and in case those women retuned back to their fathers, they returned back with their dowries. On the other hand, Spartan women in citizen families expected wives to be good and firm mothers of future soldiers. By the same token, Athenian women were expected to be good wife and tolerate and raise
children. The similarities and differences that Spartan and Athens had made them have different cultures. While Spartan were military, all their focus was on having vigorous wives and children. Also, this made people from Athens stayed in Athens because Spartan had such a different culture. Meanwhile, Athens had a democratic state. Their approach was far from war, and they tried to solve problems pacifically. However, Spartan had a better sense of community. Plutarch’s account of Spartan women supports the textbook’s presentation. Plutarch talked about who women were getting a considerable degree of license and power over Sparta. The textbook said women were taking care of business because their husbands had more time spent in the military. Women in Sparta where tough as Plutarch said, and they had to train hard no less than men because Spartan believed that if both men and women were tough, their children were going to be vigorous. However, the textbook didn’t present any information of Spartan women walking nude in processions, yet the textbook referred that Spartan women used to participate in rival contests in running and feats of strength. Plutarch’s ideas are in certain degree in agreement with the textbook. I think Plutarch’s ideas could expand the knowledge we have of Spartan women, and it looks like a credible source. Plutarch’s ideas look reasonable. There are some similarities between woman then and today. Some eastern countries don’t give many rights to women. Man rule over women, and they follow some customs that old Greeks used to follow such as bringing dowries. I think they follow those customs because of their religions, and they belief their ancestors had perfect rules, and they have to follow them. To sum up, women from Sparta and Athens had many differences. For instance, their belief was different, and also their expectation of what they had to do in live. Furthermore, Spartan women and Athenians women had some similarities. For example, they used to bring dowries upon their marriages. Moreover, Plutarch’s ideas were in some degree alike as the textbook. Lastly but not least, eastern countries have some similarities with the old Greeks civilization.
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.
Spartan women were allowed to own and control land. “Yet it does seem to be the case that Spartan daughters received as dowries one-half the amount of their parents’ property that their brothers received as inheritance.” (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 143. Print) Whereas Athenian women only received one-sixth the amount that their brothers inherited. Spartan women inherited three times as more than their Athenian sisters. Spartan women were also allowed and even encouraged to be educated, whereas the education of Athenian girls was almost nonexistent. In Athens the majority of girls “… received merely a basic training in how to run the household, generally from their mothers. Girls may even have been discouraged from becoming literate in order to keep them “unspoiled.”( Garland, Robert. "The People." Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. 103. Print.) Whereas in Sparta the girls were educated at the state’s expense. “Specific lines of development were prescribed for Spartan girls as much as they were for boys. The educational system for girls was also organized according to age classes. (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 141. Print) Spartan women were also allowed more freedoms in the way that they dressed than their Athenian counterparts. “In earlier times Athenian women wore the peplos, a long heavy woolen garment which revealed little of the figure beneath. In the middle of the sixth century B.C., the peplos was replaced by a lighter and finer garment made of linen called
Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each—through her vices or virtues—helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks. Before we delve into the traits of individual characters, it is important to understand certain assumptions about women that prevailed in the Homeric Age. By modern standards, the Ancient Greeks would be considered a rabidly misogynistic culture. Indeed, the notoriously sour Boetian playwright Hesiod-- who wrote about fifty years before Homer-- proclaimed "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil (Theogony 600).
In Classical Greece, roles played by males and females in society were well-defined as well as very distinct from each other. Expectations to uphold these societal norms were strong, as a breakdown within the system could destroy the success of the oikos (the household) and the male’s reputation—two of the most important facets of Athenian life. The key to a thriving oikos and an unblemished reputation was a good wife who would efficiently and profitably run the household. It was the male’s role, however, to ensure excellent household management by molding a young woman into a good wife. Women were expected to enter the marriage as a symbolically empty vessel; in other words, a naïve, uneducated virgin of about 15 years who could be easily shaped by a husband twice her age. Through the instruction of her husband, the empty vessel would be filled with the necessary information to become a good wife who would maintain an orderly household and her husband’s reputation, thereby fulfilling the Athenian female gender role for citizen women.
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
Unlike other Greek city states, women played an integral role in Spartan society as they were the backbone of the Spartan economic system of inheritance and marriage dowry and they were relied upon to fulfill their main responsibility of producing Spartan warrior sons. These principle economic systems affected wealth distribution among Spartan citizens especially among the Spartan elite class. Spartan women led a completely different life than women in most other ancient Greek city states, as they were depended upon to maintain Spartan social systems. In a society where the state is more involved in home life women had freedom of movement and they were permitted to communicate with men who were not their husbands. Women had domestic responsibilities including the maintenance of homes and farms when the men were on campaign, while the typical Greek female responsibilities such as weaving were delegated to slaves. Girls were raised much like Spartan boys as they were made to go through physical training insuring their success in fulfilling their most important role in society, child-bearing. The few primary sources on Sparta and Spartiate women, namely Aristotle, Plutarch, Herodotus and Xenophon were historians who lived after the prominence of ancient Sparta; therefore, the facts regarding the women’s influence in social, economic and political issues must be carefully interpreted and analysed with help from secondary sources.
Women in the ancient world had few rights, they differed from country to country or, in the case of the women of Athens and Sparta, from city-state to the city-state. The women of the city-states of Athens and Sparta had profound differences in their roles in the political and the daily lives of their families and their cities. When it came to the difference in levels of power and the rights of women, Sparta was a leader in its time. At the same time, their rights as citizens were almost the same. While they did not take an active part in politics, they had opinions and ideas like women all over the world. Their thoughts, deeds, and opinions rarely recorded or if they were, the male historians or philosophers of the time recorded them. What were roles did the women in ancient Athens and Sparta? Were they citizens, did they have personal freedoms? On the other hand, did they in a time when the beginnings of democracy were happening were they less than a second-class citizen? The misogyny and patriarchal societies continued throughout the ancient and classical periods only beginning to change in the Hellenistic era.
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
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.
One of the greatest responsibilities a woman had in Classical Sparta was giving birth to the Spartan males. Through physical training when a young teen with the Spartan boys, the women needed to be healthy and strong to produce healthy children capable of going through the agoge training. “…By athleticism they made sure that their children would be up to the standard of physical fitness demanded by the Spartan system.” (H.Michell, Sparta). The Spartan mother would prepare the young Spartans prior to the agoge; she would have minimal interaction and supply minimal clothing and
Greek women, as depicted as in their history and literature, endure many hardships and struggle to establish a meaningful status in their society. In the Odyssey, Penelope’s only role in the epic is to support Odysseus and remain loyal to him. She is at home and struggles to keep her family intact while Odysseus is away trying to return to his native land. The cultural role of women is depicted as being supportive of man and nothing more. Yet what women in ancient Greece did long ago was by far more impressive than what men did.
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.
Athenian women couldn’t acquire property while Sparta women could. Spartan women could own property and wealth. Concerning the status of women in the public eye, Athenian ladies had less flexibility and rights. The life of Athenian women was isolated due to the fact that their place was in the home. The women were supposed to be found at home more often in order to endure and arrange the salves to make the family unit, teach their kids and so on. Then again, Spartan ladies were acclaimed for their autonomy contrasted with other women of the Greek. Spartan women could go out at whatever point they need and had a free lifestyle. Although Sparta woman essential part was likewise bearing and bringing up their kids, the women of Sparta trusted that if a lady stayed solid and healthy, she would then perform her activity in a much better
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy- but it did not have to be. Romeo and Juliet is the tragic story of two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, who are the son and daughter of two feuding families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Written by the famed playwright Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet take place in the 14-15 century in the cities of Verona and Mantua, cities in northern Italy. After a series of events that involves Romeo getting banished from Verona and Juliet getting forced to marry a count, Paris, they kill themselves. It has been argued for centuries about who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. But, once reading the book thoroughly and consulting several sources, it is obvious who is solely to blame- Friar Lawrence. Because of the actions of Friar Lawrence, the play ended with two grieving families instead of two happy newlyweds. Although many characters contributed to their deaths, only Friar Lawrence was solely responsible for them. Friar Lawrence’s cowardice, secrecy, and miscommunication led directly to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.