Spartan Women Vs Athenian Women Essay

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From what I learned about male and female conditions in Ancient Greece during my years of study, I should decide first if I would be a woman or a man in both Athenian or Spartan situation. My destiny would be deeply different, and in consequence, my decisional power would change as well. By the way, I decided to imagine myself as a woman in order to be more objective and concrete on my impressions.

At first glance, this direction seemed to be asking whether one would prefer to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven. For this, I want to analyze better several aspects and to reflect on them.

There are many points to consider. Some are positive, others are terrible to be accepted by a woman. I'm a determined person so, I could never be a submissive …show more content…

I would be a strong woman, free, with rights. In Athens, women were at the same level of slaves and this is not my case. Imagine that in Athens women were fed less than males, not in Sparta. They were encouraged to have good eating habits in order to be healthy and strong enough to have babies. They were much athletic and practiced many sportives activities to stay physically healthy.

Undoubtedly, Spartan women had many rights (some more than today too). They had private property and they didn't lose it after divorce, they were in charge of the household due to the fact that men were often out at the assembly or at war. They get married later than other Greek women (not before 18 when instead in Athens also at 14). To have an older husband was common as a male became a real "Spartan" at the age of 30. But this doesn't mean they had too old husbands because they should be able to be prolific (also the life expectancy was not so long for males that came to war).

For sure, in both city-states, the question about the war was incisive in many daily issues, but we should remember that in those times, wars were constantly present. In this case, I would have preferred to be married to a well-trained husband, he had more possibilities to come back home

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