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Women in Ancient Sparta and Athens
Women in Ancient Sparta and Athens
Women in sparta in ancient greek times
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For many decades the issue on men and the way they treat their wife’s can be thought of as an interesting topic. Something in particular is the story of “Euphiletus, A Husband Speaks in His Own Defense”, and “North Slope of the Areopagus” which symbolizes the way Ancient Athenian men acted towards their wife. To add, in a way, how much women can have a major impact on men’s lives. Taking place around 400 B.C.E, the ancient Athenian murder trial rationalizes around the speculations of marriage, the roles women took part in ancient Greece, and the fears a husband faces after failing to closely monitor his wife.
A married woman had less rights than a single woman. If married, a woman couldn’t do anything without her husband, such as take out a loan, or start
In Athens, women were mostly secluded from many things. They could not vote, leave the house without permission from their husband, and more. In Sparta, the rules for women were much more lenient. Spartan women would train with the men and could own land. In both Sparta and Athens, women could marry and raise children.
The book “Spartan Women” by Sarah B. Pomeroy seeks to reconstruct the lives and the world of the Sparta's women; including how their legal status changed over time and how the women held on to their amazing autonomy. Susan B. Pomeroy generally analyzes ancient texts and to construct the world of most noticed females. Sarah B. Pomeroy is a Classist author in the twenty-first century. Throughout this paper, what will be discussed is: the author credentials, the book’s main aim, the book’s evidence, and the author writing style of the book. Spartan Women would be a powerful credible source to learn the life the Spartan women endured during their time.
If you weren’t white, male, or Christian, you couldn’t vote. (Doc. 2) Women had no rights. They couldn’t own property, and they couldn’t vote. Their children became the property of their husband, and couldn’t sign a contract without the permission of their husband.
Her response here shows that Spartan women were brought up to be tough like their male counterparts. Spartan women had more freedoms than the Athenians. For example, unlike the “housebound life of the Athenian matron” , Spartan women were able to go out in public and even interact with other men. Despite both being Greek, women had very different roles to play in their societies. These differences
Athenian vs Spartan Women Women in ancient Athens and Sparta were both considered to be subordinate to their male counterparts. However, Athenian women were considered to be much more subordinate to men; while Spartan women were of a more free status. Athenian women were bound to their home; an ideal Athenian wife pious and modest. The main activity of Athenian women was to weave elaborate textiles, birth children, and nurture infants.
The Spartan women were able to own plots of land and run their own households, they even got an education. At Athens, got a little amount of formal education and had less
Women were thought of as dependents of the father or husband. Women lived in gynaeceum: women’s quarters where they could oversee the running of the home and have very little contact with the male world (O’Pry, 2012). Spartan women, on the other hand, seem to have a bit more freedom and were able to own property. Sparta allowed for women to get educated in the same manner as the males. Sparta had a laid back culture and men were to serve in their military.
Athenian women would never have the chance to confront their children over there acts on the battlefield as women were seen as objects and were either wives or sex slaves. As for Marriage
Women were subject to a wide-ranging discrimination that marked them as secondary citizens, which is what gilderlehrman.org says. “She had no right to own property in her own name or to pursue career of her choice.” In addition, the article states, “Women could not vote, serve on juries, or hold public office.” Women didn’t have any rights that they wanted and were mostly not allowed to do anything which is unfair. A married woman had no separate legal identity from that of her husband.
On average, women in Sparta were married at the age of eighteen to boys their own age, while in Athens, girls were married off to men ten to fifteen years older than them in their early teens. Spartan women also had more choice in decisions like abortion and divorce. In Athens, abortion was commonplace, and many times girls or defected children were left to die, or killed before birth. Spartans saw all people as important, and though they allowed girls to live mainly so that they could eventually have boys, it is a much tamer option for females. Athenian women could not even represent themselves in legal matters, needing their husband or their father as a representative, and the only financial part of their life, which they could control, was their dowry.
The war shifted the cultural and theatrical scenes of Athens greatly. The war especially affected the women of Athens. With their husbands and brothers dying at war, many had to search for low paying jobs in the city. Women gained more involvement with the Athenian workforce but they gained no political power. The population became poorer and many cultural traditions, like their famous festivals and parades, lost their funding to support the soldiers and military expenses.
Adding on to other limitations, women almost had no freedom in their marriage. Before the women’s rights movement, when a woman is married the “husband and wife are one person” but “that person is the husband” (Doc 7). Once a woman is married, her rights and property were governed by the husband. Married women could not make wills or dispose of any property without their husband’s consent to do so.
Sparta’s women were known for their promiscuity and boldness . On account of Sparta’s strict militaristic lifestyle, their lives were very different compared to regular women in most city-states of Greece. Although their main job is still child-bearing, this job held much more honor and respect because in theory, a Spartan women gave birth to strong, Spartan boys who would in turn become strong and successful soldiers for Sparta’s renowned military . Just as boys were trained to become soldiers from a young age, girls were taught to be the mothers a militant Sparta
