Athenian Women Research Paper

Women in Athens and Sparta “Men are free to roam outside, but the women must stay inside.” (Unknown Athenian), this was true for most of human history, and Ancient Athens was no different. However in Ancient Sparta it was much different from the rest of Greece, and for that matter a majority of civilizations. Usually when people think of Athens they think of the Golden Age of Athens (480-322 B.C.) and think that men and women are prospering throughout Attica and it was more like the Roaring 20s of the 20th Century. And when people think of Sparta they see a society hell bent of taking over Athens and crush anyone who stands in their way. In either case nobody really takes much time to ask what were the women doing during this time period
because there are more interesting topics to learn about like the Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 B.C.) or the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.) or the many famous philosophers of the time. However women have always been the cogs working behind the machine, some more than others, and when looking at Classical Greece we see the very predictable form of women to the very backward form of women, namely Athens and Sparta. Women in Classical Athens weren’t very highly thought of and followed the predictable form of women living in a patriarchal society.
The Greek historian Xenophon in Oeconomicus described women as things important for “…the production of children.”1 And “…offspring to support them in old age…” Women were always controlled by men, whether it is her father or her husband, and would be expected to keep the house clean and be in control of the slaves and care for the children. This meant that Athenian women had little to no freedoms, and weren’t allowed to leave the house except for religious festivals, funerals, or religious cults. She wasn’t to be seen inside or outside the house by the public, and if her husband had guests over she would be confined to her bedroom.2 If a household had no slaves though then a women would have more freedoms but they were limited to the chores that the slaves would have done like farming and cleaning the property.3 If a household had slaves then she would also be in charge of the slave’s children. The life of an Athenian woman was a harsh one and seems unreal to modern people from a1st world
country. However the women of Ancient Sparta are a whole different story, they are the backwards form of a women from the rest of Greece.
The Greek Philosopher Aristotle said regarding Spartan women “…nearly two-fifths of the whole country is in the hands of women…”4 and Plutarch said “…For he exercised the girls’ bodies with races and wrestling and discus and javelin throwing, so that the embryos formed in them would have a strong start in strong bodies and develop better…and would cope well and easily with childbirth.” The way that the women of Sparta are described paints a very different picture of women in Greece. Spartan women had many freedoms and are loosely compared in rights to that of modern women. Since Sparta was a military society the women were expected to produce perfect babies and develop their intellect.5 Since the Spartan men were always away the women were in charge of running everything that didn’t involve the army. Women were also allowed to participate in sporting events and feats of strength just like the men, and were actually encouraged to. Women were also very strict and if a son came home from battle and he wasn’t on his aspis (shield), then he would be forever in shame. This is evident in Plutarch’s Sayings of Spartan Women which depicts accounts of women in normal Spartan society. Examples are “Damatria heard that her son had been a coward and unworthy of her, and when he arrived, she made away with him.” “Another Spartan woman made away with
her son, who had deserted his post, on the ground that he was unworthy of his country, saying, "Not mine the scion.". However in some extreme cases the women would kill the returning soldier “One woman, observing her son coming towards her, inquired, "How fares our country?" And when he said, "All have perished," she took up a tile and, hurling it at him, killed him, saying, "And so they sent you to bear the bad news to us!"6 The women of Sparta were clearly just as capable of doing anything that a man could do and their level of badassery was unheard of. Looking at the women of Sparta and Athens, one could clearly look at them and say that they are from two different worlds and have nothing in common with each other. However if one would take the time to look at the women’s’ practices they would see that they still had the same principals. Both Spartan and Athenian women, after giving birth to a child had it inspected to see if it was worthy enough to live and if it wasn’t then Spartans would leave it on the local hillside7 while Athenians would put it in a jar and leave it outside the house or by the road.8 In both societies women were allowed to participate in religious ceremonies and were seen as equal to men in this sense. Both Spartan and Athenian women had the chance to “divorce” their husbands and find new ones. In Sparta if a husband was away for too long then a woman could go out and find a new husband.9 In Athens if a women wanted a divorce she was to find an Archon (city official) and provide him with good reasons for a divorce; however a man could stop this by confining her to the house. Dowries were also common ground in Ancient Greece but the Spartan women usually came with larger dowries, usually in the form of land. In both societies the women were the keepers of the home as well as the charge of the slaves. But still Spartan women definitely had an easier life than that of an Athenian woman. “Men are free to roam outside, but the women must stay inside.” (Unknown Athenian), that much was true to Athenian women but not to Spartan women who had more freedoms by far. However both societies still had some things in common regarding their women ranging from dowries and inspection of babies to the practice of divorce. But in terms of freedom Spartan women had the upper hand while in terms of stability the Athenian women had the edge. Still no matter what freedoms a woman had in Ancient Greece or for any ancient civilization, it could never compare to the women of today.

Bibliography
Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization Volume A: To 1500, 8th ed. (Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012), 85.
Santos, David, Comparing and Contrasting Women in Sparta and Athenian Women, http://www.studymode.com/essays/Comparing-And-Contrasting-Women-In-Sparta-1127298.html, (StudyMode.com 2013), (10/7/2013).
Graham, Casey, Ancient Athenian Women, http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/ancientchix/, (10/7/2013).
Sayings of Spartan Women, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartan_Women*.html, Vol. 3, (2011), (10/7/2013), 455-469.
The Spartan Family, http://www.historywiz.com/didyouknow/spartanfamily.htm, (HistoryWiz, 2008) (10/7/2013).
Noreen Emmanuel, Adam Dewar, & Kerylin Foss, Women In Ancient Greece: A Comparison Between Athenian and Spartan Women, http://spartanwomen.tripod.com/, (Project History 1001 A virtual Museum Exhibit) (10/7/2013).