Women's Role In Athenian Society

1.3.6 Ancient Athens-- According to Greek methodology, Pandora, the first women on the earth, was the source of all problems and evils and scourge for mankind. This story was deliberately fictitious to degrade the Athenian women who brought all sufferings in this world. The women of Athens were treated like the source of all evils and consider as minors. Also, Allen E. A, the author of History of Civilization, says:” The Athenian women were minor, subject to fulfil the wish of male- to father, to brother, or to some kin.” A respectable woman’s main role in ancient Athens was to stay home, keep pretty, and bear children. Her life centered on the house and the children. Most citizen wives had slaves to do the cooking, cleaning, and grocery

They enjoyed positions of equal opportunity and were respected both in the family and society as well. They were not treated as a decorative objects, but co-partners in life, in its pleasures and hurdles, in its joys and sorrows. They were imparted education like men and enjoyed considerable freedom in their personal matters. In short, it may be said that women enjoyed a fairly reasonable position during ancient times and have a equal status. The communities as a whole showed proper concern and esteem for women, allowing them significant freedom in different activities of social and political life. They shared an equal standing with their menfolk and enjoyed a kind of liberty that actually had societal sanctions. The ancient Hindu philosophical concept of 'Shakti', the feminine principle of energy, was also a creation of this age. This took the form of worship of the female

Females were as free as their male counterparts. Women never observed purdah in the Vedic period. "They enjoyed freedom in selecting their life mates. The data of the Rig Veda shows that the girls and boys of the Rig Vedic society had freedom to choose their partners in life." But divorce was not allowed to them. In the family, they enjoyed absolute freedom and were treated as Ardhanginis. In domestic life women were considered to be supreme and enjoyed the freedom.

Education was equally provided to boys and girls. The girls studied the Veda and fine arts. Women of the Vedic period were personification of intellectual and spiritual attainments. The Vedas have volumes to say about these women, who both complemented and supplemented their male partners. When it comes to talking about noteworthy female figures of the Vedic period, four names - Ghosha, Lopamudra, Sulabha Maitreyi, and Gargi - come to the mind.

Ghosha--Vedic wisdom is summarized in myriad hymns and 27 women-seers emerge from them. But most of them are mere abstractions except for a few, such as Ghosha, who has a definite human form. Granddaughter of Dirghatamas and daughter of Kakshivat, both composers of hymns in praise of Ashwins, Ghosha has two entire hymns of the tenth book, each containing 14 verses, assigned to her