[lit-ideas] Athenian and Spartan Women
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas " <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:37:39 -0800
[Cartledge, op. cit., pp 36-38]
"An Athenian girl would receive no formal education beyond training for the
domestic duties required of a good Athenian wife and mother - weaving,
food-preparation, childcare, household management. A daughter was routinely
fed smaller rations than her brothers. At puberty she would be sequestered
in her father's or other male guardian's house until she was married off to
a man who, if he could afford to, would keep her as much as possible out of
the public eye and would think it dishonourable even to hear her talked
about among unrelated men. She was not allowed to own any significant
amount of property in her own right and had no official say in Athens' much
vaunted democracy. Significantly, the women of Athens of whom we hear most
were not Athenian citizen women at all, but the hetaerae or upmarket
prostitutes who were powerful but definitely beyond the acceptable social
pale.
"In sharp and complete contrast, Spartan women were - allegedly - active,
prominent, powerful, surprisingly independent-minded, and positively
garrulous. Girls had a similar education to that of boys, though separate.
Many could read and write. Young virgins, oiled head to toe, ran races,
then danced by night to worship their gods and goddesses. By day,
ultimately to attract suitors, they threw the javelin and discus, wrestled -
sometimes, again allegedly, with the boys - and performed gymnastics, all
completely naked and in full public view, to the consternation of Greek
visitors from other cities. They were also keen on horses. . . The
reputation of Spartan girls and women for outstanding physical beauty went
right back as far as Helen of Troy - or Helen of Sparta, as she of course
was originally. But so too did their reputation for being fast and loose.
The derogatory epithet 'thigh-flasher' was coined just for them - even
though . . . the Spartan-made bronze figurines depicting typical young
female Spartans in athletic (and thigh-revealing) pose tell a story rather
of vitality, grace and vigour.
"Spartan women could own property, including land, and though they had no
official voice in the Spartan warrior Assembly, they clearly found other
ways to make their views known and felt. There is even a collection of
Sayings of Spartan Women, preserved by Plutarch: something unthinkable in
the case of Athenian women. Spartan women, moreover, were freed from the
everyday drudgery that was their Athenian sisters' normal lot. Helot women
and men did the housework for them, cooked, wove, childminded, and so on.
The women were left with only the satisfactions of motherhood, which they
took very seriously indeed. Sexually, too, they seemed to be independent .
. . . Certainly, with their men often away at war or practicing for it,
they sought emotional satisfaction with other women. Certainly, strong
women acquired such positions of authority that they could be considered a
political force or - depending on outlook - menace.
"Not that Sparta was any kind of feminist utopia. Much of the physical
training, for example, was severely eugenic in aim. But such was the
women's apparent emancipation to non-Spartan eyes that Aristotle actually
blamed them for Sparta's eventual demise as a great power, on the grounds
that they had never submitted themselves satisfactorily to the Lycurgan
regimen imposed on and accepted by their men. That was probably a judgment
warped by the typically sexist outlook of the average Greek citizen male,
but it pays a backhanded compliment to what was surely the most remarkable
group of women in all Greece."
Lawrence
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