Women's Roles In Ancient Greece

Women and men had quite different roles in ancient Greece; women had limited privileges, the rarely played notable roles in public affairs. There are actually no names of female poets, artists, or philosophers from classical Athens. However, the “status of woman was strictly protected by law” (p.83). Only the woman was in charge of the household and the family’s possessions, and only the sons of a citizen woman could be citizens. Woman had these law rights, but they were mostly to protect their husband’s interests.
Women’s in Greece would bring dowries to their husbands upon marriage, in which if they got a divorce it would go back to their fathers. Women’s main function was to bear and raise children, since childbirth can be a dangerous thing for both the mother and infant, pregnant women would usually make sacrifices or visit temples to ask help form the gods. Back in ancient Greece women had to rely on their relatives, friends, or midwives to assist them in the delivery. Women had a secluded life in which the only men they saw were relatives and tradesmen. There was actually a treaty that described the ideal household that stated that god assigned their duties, and they must
accomplish them. The law approves them, for it joins man and woman together. “And god makes them partners in their children, and law likewise makes them partners in the home” (p.83).
Women in wealthier citizen families would only leave their home to attend some religious festivals, and perhaps occasionally plays.
They would also spend most of their time in the gynaeceum where they would oversee domestic slaves and hired labor, and together with servants and friends, they worked wool into cloth. Another, role for women was to care for the ill slaves and nursed them back to health, while caring for the family’s material possessions as well. In the other hand, those women of noncitizen families lived freer lives than citizen women; however, they had to work harder and had fewer material comforts. These women had to perform manual labor in the fields or they had to sell goods or services in the agora. Many of the services noncitizen women and men sold was
sex.
The gender roles back in ancient Greece are quite different that out modern American ideas. Women in ancient Greece were treated differently based on where they lived, women had almost no rights, they were considered property of their husbands/brothers/fathers, they were not allowed outside, and they not allowed to converse with non-related men. While now in our modern American ideas, women are mostly treated as equals, women and men have the same rights, women are educated, and can work and can vote. However, there can be some similarities, women’s today can still be treated unequally, they can still be seen as homemakers, and they are not allowed to combat, and in some countries, women are still getting set up in arranged marriages by their fathers.