Women's Rights In Athens

The women of Athens were mothers, daughters, and sisters of citizens, but they were not citizens themselves in the constitutional sense of the term. Women resided in the background of society in subordinate, passive positions. They possessed no true political rights (they couldn’t have attended the citizen assembly, let alone vote), they couldn’t sit on juries in citizen courts, they didn't control whatever property may have been attached to their name, they were not autonomous individuals before the law, they were always under the authority of a male guardian, and their proper place as in the home raising children that “belonged” entirely to their father. While political rights were denied to them many women were able to be active members