Sparta's Rights

What are rights? Well, there are four defining features to what a right is. Rights focus mainly on three things; they focus on freedom, protection, and status, or in other words the benefits of the rightholders. The duties of citizens of any society that advance when rights are in place typically are: respect, protection, an easy way to advance, and supplies to make advancing easier. Occasionally, rights lead to the deposition of very important, life changing decisions; but can also assign responsibilities upon you. Then again, there are some rights that require other factors to be in place for that specific rights purpose to fall into place. For example, your right to vote may be limited if you don’t have an easy way to access a place
The men of Sparta are the ones who wrote the constitution of Sparta. When they invaded and conquered the land of Messenia, the Messenians became their slaves, also known as helots, which meant things had to change with the way they ruled their land. The ratio of helots to Spartans was one to seven. The helots were consistently revolting. If the Spartans wanted to win, they needed military training. The need for military training lead to the men of Sparta being sent to live in the military barracks at the age of seven, until they were sixty-five years of age,occasionally being allowed to come home, get married and have kids. With that being said, who was going to rule Sparta? They surely were not going to give the helots the power to own their land, and work in their houses; they made them work in the fields. Their only other option was to allow the women to have rights. The women of Sparta owned up to forty percent of Sparta’s agricultural land; they were publically educated, able to move about freely, and they were outspoken. When they were first given their rights, the women did not want to work or control land that they were not earning anything from. The men had high expectations of the women; eventually, work needed to be done causing the men to give the women incentives to do their jobs properly and efficiently. For example, the women begun gaining some profit off the land they owned. Due to the men being at war, they could not be there to monitor the women doing their jobs, and they needed a way to make sure they did it right. The men had to learn to trust them. This worked for a while until the opportunity cost of women having children skyrocketed; women stopped having children as frequently; the women were allowed to go out and have children with other men if they were stronger and