Women in Ancient Greece facts for kids
The status of women in ancient Greece varied form city state to city state. Women in ancient Delphi, Gortyn, Thessaly, Megara and Sparta could own land, which was the most prestigious form of private property at the time.
Contents
Social, legal and political status
Although mostly women lacked political and equal rights in ancient Greece, they enjoyed a certain freedom of movement until the Archaic age. Records also exist of women in ancient Delphi, Gortyn, Thessaly, Megara and Sparta owning land, the most prestigious form of private property at the time. However, after the Archaic age, women's status got worse, and laws on gender segregation were implemented.
Athens
Women in Classical Athens had no legal personhood and were assumed to be part of the oikos (household) headed by the male kyrios (master). In Athenian society, the legal term of a wife was known as a damar, a word that is derived from the root meaning of "to subdue" or "to tame". Until marriage, women were under the guardianship of their fathers or other male relatives; once married, the husband became a woman's kyrios. While the average age to get married for men was around 30, the average age for women was 14. This system was implemented as a way to ensure that girls were still virgins when they wed; it also made it possible for husbands to choose who their wife's next husband was going to be before he died.
As women were barred from conducting legal proceedings, the kyrios would do so on their behalf.
Athenian women had limited right to property and therefore were not considered full citizens, as citizenship and the entitlement to civil and political rights was defined in relation to property and the means to life. If there was a death of the head of a household with no male heir to inherit, then a daughter may become the provisional beret of the property, known as epikleros (roughly translated to an heiress). Later, it was common for most of the women to marry a close relative of her father if she became adjunct to that property. However, women could acquire rights over property through gifts, dowry and inheritance, though her kyrios had the right to dispose of a woman's property. Athenian women could enter into a contract worth less than the value of a "medimnos of barley" (a measure of grain), allowing women to engage in petty trading. Slaves, like women, were not eligible for full citizenship in ancient Athens, though in rare circumstances they could become citizens if freed. The only permanent barrier to citizenship, and hence full political and civil rights, in ancient Athens was gender. No women ever acquired citizenship in ancient Athens, and therefore women were excluded in principle and practice from ancient Athenian democracy.
Athens was also the cradle of philosophy at the time and anyone could become a poet, scholar, politician or artist except women. Historian Don Nardo stated "throughout antiquity most Greek women had few or no civil rights and many enjoyed little freedom of choice or mobility". During the Hellenistic period in Athens, the famous philosopher Aristotle thought that women would bring disorder, evil, and were "utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy." Because of this, Aristotle thought keeping women separate from the rest of the society was the best idea. This separation would entail living in homes called a gynaeceum while looking after the duties in the home and having very little exposure with the male world. This was also to protect women's fertility from men other than her husband so her fertility can ensure their legitimacy of their born lineage. Athenian women were also educated very little except home tutorship for basic skills such as spin, weave, cook and some knowledge of money.
Sparta
By contrast, Spartan women enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. Although Spartan women were formally excluded from military and political life they enjoyed considerable status as mothers of Spartan warriors. As men engaged in military activity, women took responsibility for running estates. Following protracted warfare in the 4th century BC Spartan women owned approximately between 60% and 70% of all Spartan land and property. By the Hellenistic Period, some of the wealthiest Spartans were women. They controlled their own properties, as well as the properties of male relatives, who were away with the army. Spartan women rarely married before the age of 20, and unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore short dresses and went where they pleased. Girls as well as boys received an education, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths"). Despite relatively greater mobility for Spartan women, their role in politics was just as the same as Athenian women: they could not take part in it. Men forbade them from speaking at assemblies and segregated them from any political activities. Aristotle also thought Spartan women's influence was mischievous and argued that the greater legal freedom of women in Sparta caused its ruin.
Gortyn
In Gortyn, women had a much better position than in Greece. Every woman, including slaves, was subject of protection. Gortyne women, as well as Spartan women, were able to enter into a legal agreement and appear before the court. She had special property that her husband did not have at his disposal, and in relation to that, she could appear in court and take oaths. Husband and wife had the right to divorce equally. A free divorced woman could throw her child into the river. Daughters in Gortyn inherited half of the movables that her brothers would receive. Epicleros (in Sparta and Gortyn, they were called patrouchoi) had a certain freedom of choice regarding her husband. Namely, if a woman was already married with children, and became an epicler, she could choose whether to divorce her husband or not. But a married woman without children who becomes an epicler, had no choice but to divorce and marry according to the regulations. The heir's daughter could not dispose of the inherited property, she could exceptionally sell it or pledge it in the amount of the debt for the payment of her late father's creditor.
Right to divorce
Despite the harsh limits on women's freedoms and rights in ancient Greece, their rights in context of divorce were fairly liberal. Marriage could be terminated by mutual consent or action taken by either spouse. If a woman wanted to terminate her marriage, she needed the help of her father or other male relative to represent her, because as a woman she was not considered a citizen of Greece. If a man wanted a divorce however, all he had to do was throw his spouse out of his house. A woman's father also had the right to end the marriage. In the instance of a divorce, the dowry was returned to the woman's guardian (who was usually her father) and she had the right to retain ½ of the goods she had produced while in the marriage. If the couple had children, divorce resulted in paternal full custody, as children are seen as belonging to his household. While the laws regarding divorce may seem relatively fair considering how little control women had over most aspects of their lives in ancient Greece, women were unlikely to divorce their husbands because of the damage it would do to their reputation. As women were barred from conducting legal proceedings, the kyrios would do so on their behalf.
Education
In ancient Greece, education encompassed cultural training in addition to formal schooling. Young Greek children, but only the boys, were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by a litterator (the equivalent of a modern elementary school teacher). If a family did not have the funds for further education, the boy would begin working for the family business or train as an apprentice, while a girl was expected to stay home and help her mother to manage the household. If a family had the money, parents could continue to educate their sons for their family. This next level of schooling included learning how to speak correctly and interpret poetry, and was taught by a Grammaticus. Music, mythology, religion, art, astronomy, philosophy, and history were all taught as segments of this level of education.
Quality of life
In ancient Greece, Athenian women compensated for their legal incapacities by cultivating the trust of men. They would do this by treating the closest allies to them implemental, creating affectionate relationships. At the expense of the individual several women in ancient Greece struggled in their personal life and their public life, from our perspective there is an emphasis on the nuclear, patriarchal Oikos (households). At home a majority of the women had almost no power, always answering to the man of the household, women often hid while guests were over. Women were often designated to the upper floors, particularly to stay away from the street door and to be away from the semipublic space where the kyrios (master) would entertain his friends.
Women were also responsible to maintain the household, fetch water from fountain houses, help organize finances and weave their cloth and clothing for their families. Starting at the young age of seven girls were entrusted with the beginning of weaving one of the most famous Athenian textiles, the peplos (robe) for the holy statue of Athena on the Acropolis. This was an elaborate, very patterned cloth, the design of which traditionally included a battle between the gods and the giants. It took nine months to complete it, and many women participated in its creation. Athenian women and younger girls spent most of their time engaged in the activity of manufacturing textiles from raw materials, these materials were commonly wool. Ischomachos claimed to Socrates that he brought home his fourteen-year-old wife, she had great abilities to work with wool, make clothes and supervise the spinning performed by the women slaves.
In phylosophy
Plato acknowledged that extending civil and political rights to women would substantively alter the nature of the household and the state. Aristotle, who had been taught by Plato, denied that women were slaves or subject to property, arguing that "nature has distinguished between the female and the slave", but he considered wives to be "bought". He argued that women's main economic activity is that of safeguarding the household property created by men. According to Aristotle the labour of women added no value because "the art of household management is not identical with the art of getting wealth, for the one uses the material which the other provides".
Contrary to these views, the Stoic philosophers argued for equality of the sexes, sexual inequality being in their view contrary to the laws of nature. In doing so, they followed the Cynics, who argued that men and women should wear the same clothing and receive the same kind of education. They also saw marriage as a moral companionship between equals rather than a biological or social necessity, and practiced these views in their lives. The Stoics adopted the views of the Cynics and added them to their own theories of human nature, thus putting their sexual egalitarianism on a strong philosophical basis.
See also
- Feminism in Greece
- Representation of women in Athenian tragedy
- Women in Classical Athens
- Women in ancient Sparta
