woman in ancient athens

8/18/2019 Woman in Ancient Athens

1/8

Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in Social Sciences

The Status of Women in Ancient AthensAuthor(s): William J. O'NealSource: International Social Science Review, Vol. 68, No. 3 (SUMMER 1993), pp. 115-121Published by: Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social SciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41882108 .

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3/8

1

16

SUMMER

1993,

VOLUME

68,

NUMBER 3

whatever

direction nd

atwhatever ime

they

were

patriarchal

nd their

rimary

deity

was a

sky god.

The

new

people

blended withtheold and

produced

a

society

in which thelanguage and thereligionof the new predominated.The resulting

language

was an

Indo-European

language

with

traces of the old

language,

particularly

n the

names of

places.

The

resulting eligion

was not a blend of the

two,

but n unbalanced

combination n which

themale

aspects

of thenew

religion

gained

dominance

over the female

aspects

of

the

old. The

same fate befell

the

Greek

people

-

the

patriarchal

ociety

of

thenew

people predominated,

while the

matriarchal

ociety struggled

o maintain ome

identity.

n the

resulting

iviliza-

tion,

the matriarchal

nd the

patriarchal spects

remained at

war,

as is

easily

discernible in the

religion.

Although

Zeus and Hera were brother nd

sister,

husband

and

wife,

and

king

and

queen,

they

were neither riendsnor overs. In

fact, n themythoreligious tories, heywere usuallyhostileopponents.

One

of thefirst

iterary

iews of thisnew

religion

nd

society

comes from he

misogynist

Hesiod in the

eighth century

B.C.

According

to Hesiod

in the

Theogony,

Ge,

the earth

goddess, produced

children who were deifications

of

features

f the

physical

world.

Some

of her childrenwere

monsters,

nd

others,

who

were sired

by

her on

Ouranos,

were hated

by

their ather.Ge

persuaded

one

of her

sons, Cronus,

to castratehis father nd this

particular

ct was

repeated

n

the

ucceeding

generation

f

Cronus

and his son Zeus. Itwas

Zeus,

the

stablisher

of law

and order and

justice,

who

prohibited

women from n active role in the

society

of all Greece

-

except

for the role of

childbearing,

and even this he

qualified.

It was Zeus who established the

patriarchal overnment

n

Olympus.

He also introducedmoral

order nd culture.He denied

power

to

females;

he even

took

away

their ole claim as bearers of children

by producing

Athena fromhis

head and

Dionysus

fromhis

thigh.

In

the

Olympian pantheon,

the

Greeks,

who created their

god

in their

wn

image

and

likeness,

defeminized hemost

mportant

f the

goddesses.

Athena,

the

goddess

of

wisdom,

was a

deity

f

war,

which was a masculine endeavor. Athena

was a

virgin

which is thedenial of her sex. Athena was bom of a male and

thus

was

subject

to him. Artemiswas a

virgin,

huntress,

nd a warrior.

Hestia,

acking

anthropomorphic ttributes ndmythological tories,was envisionedonlyas an

old

maid,

again

a

denial of her sex.

Aphrodite,

bom

of a

male,

also was the

only

goddess

to commit

adultery,

s the male did.

She

was

also motivated

by

sexual

love,

again

like themale.

Hera,

who was dominated

by

Zeus,

constantly pposed

him and lived in a state of eternalwatchfulness nd a state of

permanent

war-

marriage.

The tenets f this

godly society

embraced human

society,

n it s

against

this

general

background

that he

society

of Athens

developed.

A

comprehensive

and

unbiased view of the role of women in Athens

during

thefifth nd fourth enturiesB.C.

is

difficult

o ascertain.There were no Athenian

women writers n that

period.

There is

very

little iterature f

any

kind

which

comes from hemiddle or ower classes ofsociety.The view of women in Athens

in the iterature

omes from he

writings

f males from

he

upper

economic class.


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4/8

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

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117

Thus,

formodem

scholars,

thewomen of Athens are as

much of an

enigma

as the

Greeks themselves.

n

Athens,

forthe most

part,

women were

legal

nonentities

whom the Greek male excluded from any participationin the political or

intellectual ifeof the

ity.Generally,

hewomen did not ttend chool and did

not

leam to read and write.

According

to one

scholarly

view,

they

were uneducated

except

for

domestic

training; hey

were

virtually mprisoned

n theirhomes. The

principal

pokesmen

offifth

century

thens,

or

example,

Pericles and

Thucydides,

disdained Athenianwomen. Other

cholars,

ike

Lacey

and

Ehrenberg,

ake a less

sanguine position.

Yet,

as A. W.

Gomme

pointed

out,

There

is,

in

fact,

no

literature,

o art of

any country,

n which

women are more

prominent,

more

carefully

tudied

and

withmore

interest,

han n

tragedy, culpture,

nd

painting

of fifth

entury

Athens. 1

Actually,

n

classical

Athens,

women fulfilled arious

roles nsocietywhich themale Atheniansviewed as either good or bad. The

two

primary ood

roles

played

by

women were those of wives and of mothers.

Among

the

bad roles were those of

lovers, rebels,

and witches.

The ideal

wife

for

the Athenian male

appears

first,

ot n real

life,

but in the

primary

iterature

f the Westernworld. In the first ook of the

Odyssey,

Homer

depicts

Penelope

as the

epitome

of the Greek wife. As she enters the

epic,

she

descends the

stairway

not

along

but

accompanied by

two servants.

Then,

weeping,

she

addresses Phemios the

singer

with an order to

sing

of

the deeds of

men

and

gods

-

a

happy

tune not the sorrowful

ones.

She

states that she is

affected y

an

unforgettable rief,

nd that s because

Odysseus

is

gone (1,

330-

359).

She

ultimately

etreats ithin hehouse

and

then ries

herself o

sleep (360-

364).

In Book

XIX,

the

prudent enelope

encounters

Odysseus

-

at this

point

a

stranger

but

again

she is not

alone,

for

Eurynome,

her

housekeeper,

s withher.

In lines

124-163,

Penelope

details here

constancy

and faithfulness o

Odysseus

and relates

her

hree-year

use and ultimate

iscovery.

She has finished herobe

unwillingly

nd underduress.At

the

beginning

f Book

XXI(2), Penelope

is

again

the

prudent

wife

accompanied by

her

erving

women. She

wept

aloud forher ost

husband

in line

56;

again,

in line

330,

it

s the

prudent

Penelope

who

weeps

for

her dear husband.

Even in Book XXIII it s the

prudent

Penelope

who is slow to

acceptthereturn f that ame dear husband. n therecognition cene of that ame

book,

she

weeps

for

joy

and is most

eager

to

respond

to the invitationof her

husband,

Let us

go

to

bed,

my

wife,

so

that

now we

may

lie down and take

pleasure

beneath sweet

sleep

(254-255).

The ultimatemodel Athenian

wife and

husband

reveal themselves

n the

persons

of

Penelope

and

Odysseus

in

ines

299-

373.

In

theconversationbetween

husband and

wife,

Penelope

assertsthat he has

remained

chaste, unviolated,

and faithful o her husband.

Odysseus

has

warred,

adventured,

nd has

enjoyed

the ntimate

ompany

of both Circe

and

Calypso.

The

dutifulwife

accepts

the absence

and

adultery

s her husband

drifts ff nto

sleep.

She,

Penelope,

was themodel and

ideal for ll Athenian

women and for

ll

Greekwomen toemulate. She was the

perfect

wife.

The

Athenians,

nce

there xisted

a role

model,

trained r

hoped

to train

heir




5/8

118

SUMMER

1993,

VOLUME

68,

NUMBER 3

wives. And so itwas that

Xenophon

in the

Oeconomicus,

Books

VII-X,

outlined

the

way

to train new bride.

According

to

Xenophon,

the

proper

age

for the

Athenian bridewas 15 ora little ess. She was expectedto be a personwho knew

and saw and said as little s

possible.

The most

important

irtuewhich she was

to

bring

nto her

marriage

was the

ability

o controlher

appetite.

The translation

of the word

appetite,

which

appears

in the Loeb

edition,

s a

little

mbiguous

(VII,

6).

The word

employed by Xenophon properly

means stomach

or

belly.

Moderation, hen,

n and control

f

the ntake f

food was mostdesirable. t seems

that,

even in

antiquity,

bese wives were not in favor with

husbands,

either

because of estheticsor

perhaps

because of the

expense.

The

province

of the

wife-

according

to

Xenophon

-

is the

house,

and her

training

must be in

respect

o the ndoors and thecare of the

household.

She

must

bearchildren, earchildren, e discreet,practiceself-control,manage thehouse,

supervise

the

slaves,

and be able

to weave and to teach the slaves

the art of

weaving.

She must take care of the ll in the

house,

keep

an

orderly

home,

show

total nd immediateobedience to her

husband,

and

get

her

daily

exercise

through

work n

thehouse. Two observationsmade

by

Xenophon

are

especially

notewor-

thy.

He states: The better

artner ou prove

to

me and thebetter

uard

ofthehouse

to our

children,

he

greater

will be the honor

paid

to

you

in our home

(VII,

42).

He

continues,

For it is not

through

utward comeliness that he

sum of

things

good

and beautiful s increased in the

world,

but the

daily practice

of the

virtues

(VII, 43).

The Athenian woman must be

the

perfectPenelope

-

a

partner

o

the

husband,

a

guard

of the

house,

and one who

practices

the virtuesdefined

by

her

husband.

Physical

beauty

was not to be a

goal,

nor was it even a

primary

alued

attribute. otal dedication to

thewelfareof

husband,

children,

nd

household was

the ultimate

virtue.

Three additional wives from

iteraturellustrate he

virtues nd vices

of the

Athenian matron.

Alcestis,

the one

of

Euripides,

is the

epitome

of the

self-

sacrificing

wife who

possesses

the

virtues and the

training

of a

good

wife.

Euripides

depicts throughout

heAlcestis a

woman who is

strong,

dutiful,

nd

pious

in the

eyes

of her

servants.

She

is a woman

who

prays

for her

children,

honorshergods,and s almostincapable ofdeparting rom hemarriage edwhere

her

maidenhood was

undressed

177).

She is so

dedicated to her

husband that he

alone offers o

give up

her ife so thather husband

may

live.

Phaedra,

quite

another kind of wife in the

Hippolytus,

demonstrates

the

concerns of a

proper

mate.

Reputation

must

be

preserved

above

all,

as Phaedra

teaches in her shame

speech

(373-430).

When

Phaedra fell in love

with

Hippolytus,

he decided that

ilence and concealment

were the best

plan.

Then,

discretion nd

good

sense followed.

Ultimately,

he

final olution was

death,

nd

she

says,

It would

always

be

my

choice to have

my

virtuesknown and

honored

(402-403).

She

continues,

I cannot bear that

should be discovered a

traitor o

myhusband and mychildren.God grant hemrich and glorious lives inAthens

. . . and fromtheirmother n

honorable name

(420-423). Reputation

s

what




6/8

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW

119

Euripides

makes most

mportant

or he

woman,

and

ifthis s

lost,

then heresult

should be like the end of Phaedra.

Clytemnestra,s characterizedby Aeschylus, embodies whata wife should

not be- a

totally

ebellious and

fear-inspiring

ife.

Throughout

h

eAgamemnon,

Gytemnestra

s thewife of the

king,

hemother f

Orestes,

and

exactly

what she

should

notbe

-

as the horusreveals n ine 35 1

My lady, you speak

like a

man.

She

describes herself n lines

606-609:

as faithful s he

left,

watchdog

at

his

door,

knowing

one

loyalty,

o enemies

implacable,

in

all

ways unchanged.

She

calls herself in

Greek

domatori

cyna.

The word

cyon

has

possible

been

mistranslated r misunderstood

s a

watchdog.

The

primarymeaning

of the

word

is

bitch,

nd in Homer

it s a word of

reproach

forwomen a word which

denotes

shamelessness and

audacity.

n

the

liad

(VI,

344,

356),

Helen

applies

thisword

toherself; risapplies it to Athena inVIII, 423, and Hera applies it toArtemis n

XXI,

481. This

speech

of

Gytemnestra

an be

given

two distinct

interpretations.

Not

only

does she

depict

herself s

faithful,

nowing

one

loyalty, mplacable

to

her

enemies,

and

watchdog

of

the

house;

she also embodies the

negative

aspects

of each

of these in her sentiments toward

Agamemnon.

She is

masculine,

rebellious,

and fear

nspiring,

true

domatori

yon

The second

role forwomen in Athens

was

that f mother. To the

Athenian,

as

Xenophon pointed

out in the

Oeconomicus,

the

primary uty

of an Athenian

wife was to

produce

Athenian

children.

Soranus,

though

he

practiced

medicine

some centuries after he Golden

Age

of

Athens,

states in the

Gynecology

that

women are

marriedfor the sake of children and

succession,

and not formere

enjoyment 34).

Women are

fit o

conceive,

according

to

Soranus,

between the

ages

of 15 and

40,

if

hey

re not

mannish,

ompact,

and

oversturdy,

r too

flabby

and

very

moist.

Thus,

the

primary

uty

of

Athenian

women of

childbearing ge

was to

produce

little

Athenians with or without

pleasure.

The worst mother f

all,

magnificently

epicted by Euripides

in

the

Medea,

clearly

demonstrated o theAthenians

what a mother hould not be. Medea and

Jason went

to

Corinth

with children.At the

opening

of the

play (112),

Medea

expresses

her attitude

oward herchildren: You accursed sons of a motherwho

knowsnothing uthate,damnyou, yourfather,ndyouwhole house. Although

she was

a mother nd at one time

evidently

oved her

children,

Jason's

rejection

of

her

clearly

changed everything

ntohate. She

murdersherchildrenbecause of

that

rejection;

she

prefers

herself o her husband

and

children

nd theirwelfare.

The

negative

roles of women in Athens

during

he fifth nd fourth

enturies

B.C. included

the

adulteress,

the

rebel,

and

the witch. All three of these

roles

confronted

the

superiority

f

the man and

endangered

his dominance. The

Athenian

men

operated

under double

standard.Marriedmen

were ike

Odysseus,

free nd even

expected

to

be

sexually

active outside

marriage.Again,

in

iterature,

this

ppears

in the

epic poem

of

the blind

poet

of

Chios(?).

Homer

statesthathis

Iliad concerned thewrathof Achilles and thewar againstTroy.He could have

stated

that he

cause

was a woman

or

possibly

the

possession

of a

woman. Helen




7/8

120

SUMMER

1993,

VOLUME

68,

NUMBER 3

and her

adultery

were the causes

of the

Trojan

War,

but the role of Paris and his

responsibility

re not

stated so

strongly.

As the liad

continues,

t is

again

the

possession of a woman that caused the conflict between Agamemnon and

Achilles. It is the

right

of

Agamemnon

and of all the

Greek

heroes to have

company

n their ents ven if

echnically

he ct s an adulterous

ne.

Agamemnon

pushes

the

right

o the

limit,

for he

returnshome to

Greece with his

traveling

companion

Cassandra,

who was selected not

necessarily

because of her

jovial

personality

nd

grasp

of the

present.

n

contrast,

lytemnestra

eceived condem-

nation from he outset

of

the

Agamemnon

by Aeschylus

forher association with

Aegisthus.

But

Agamemnon

acts in the

tradition

f

the Greek

world,

following

in the

footsteps

f Zeus and

Odysseus.

This

practice

was established n the

divine

world and itcarriedover into

theheroic world fromwhere

t

finally

made its

way

into real life and received

legal

sanction.

Diogenes

Laertius (II,

26) reports

n

Athenian aw which

permitted

thenian

men to

marry

ne Athenianwoman and

have children

by

another.He

states: For

they ay

the

Athenians,

because of the

scarcity

of

men,

wished to increase the

population,

and

passed

a vote that man

mightmarry

ne Athenianwoman and have children

by

another. arah

Pomeroy

points

ut that

allias, Socrates,

and

Euripides

each had two

wives,

and that

Myrto

was the mother f the two sons of

Socrates,

who were

still children n

399 B.C.2

The law stated

nothing

about

Athenian women

having

two husbands

or the

legitimacy

f an Athenianwoman

being

married o

one Athenianmale and

having

children y

another.

mplicit

n this s

themistaken onceptionthat ackofchildren

must be the fault of the female. The double standard

permitted

he male to do

whatever he

desired,

while the female had to remain

forever aithful.

Although

therewere as

many

reasons for heAthenianwoman to

commit

dultery

s existed

for he

male,

thewife could

legally

be

punished,

whereas thehusband did

not

get

the attention f the aw.

Aristophanes,Aeschylus,

and

Euripides

createdwomen who

rebelled

against

their

powerless position.

n the

Lysistrata,

the women

are faced with a war that

drags

on

eternally.They

have neither

olitical

power

nor nfluence.There is

but

one

weapon

in their control and that

is their own

sexuality. Lysistrata,

an

Athenian, nd herfriends rom ther ity-statesre rebelsand,althoughthis s a

comedy,

it is a caricature of real life.

Otherwise,

there would be no humor.

Aeschylus

createdthe

archenemy

f the

husband,

Clytemnestra,

ho was in

open

rebellion.

Euripides

created his

Medea,

and

she took her rebellion to thefurthest

extent themurder f herchildren.

Lysistrata

nd

herfriendswithdrew rom he

marriage

ct, and,

although

thiswas a

serious

transgression

o theminds of

their

husbands,

tdid not

injure nyone. Clytemnestra

ontemplated

nd

accomplished

the death of her husband. Without consideration

of

motivation,

the act was

murder,

ut,

ike

everything

lse,

therewere

degrees

of murder.The murder f a

husband

was

not

the

murder f

a

blood relative.To the

Greeks

of

antiquity,

he

takingof a blood relative's life exceeded the murder f anyone else. The most

horrendous rimes were those committed

by

Medea.

She

murderedher

brother




8/8

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW

121

and her children. She must have

represented

he

most rebellious and the

most

criminal

of women. These three Athenians

wrote for their time and for

their

audiences. They dealt with the problems of theirday. These problems of the

Athenians,

as

depicted

in the

Lysistrata,

the

Oresteia,

and the

Medea,

all

concerned women and women in rebellion.

Athens was the

nlightened ity

f classical times. n this

democracy,

the

city

of almost

500,000

souls at its

height

had fewer than

15

percent

of

its

people

as

citizens

with

equal

and full

rights.

he slaves were

powerless

and not

part

of the

citizen

body.

The

metics,

though

n Athens for

generations,

had

only

limited

rights.

hildrenwere n the

power

of

their

arents.

ven

among

children herewas

a serious

distinction;

boy

child was considered of much more value than

girl.

And

women

-

thewives and mothers f theAthenians were

necessary

but

only

as tools and instruments.

Hipponax

of

Ephesus (sixth century

B.C.)

wrote,

The two best

days

in a

woman's life

are

when someone

marriesher and

when

he

carries her dead

body

to the

grave (Fragment

68,

West). Sophocles,

an Athenian male of the fifth

century

B.C.,

more

succinctly

states the condition of women in

his

city.

In a

fragment

f the Tereus

583),

he wrote: But now outside

my

father's

house,

I am

nothing,yet

oftenhave I looked on women's nature n this

regard,

hat

we are

nothing.Young

women,

in

my opinion,

have

the sweetest existence known to

mortals n their athers

homes,

for heir nnocence

always keeps

children afe and

happy.But when we reachpuberty nd can understand,we are thrust ut andsold

away

fromour ancestral

gods

and fromour

parents.

Some

go

to

strange

men's

homes,

others

o

foreigners,

ome to

oyless

homes,

some to hostile.

And

all

this

once thefirst

ight

has

yoked

us to

our

husbands,

we are forcedto

praise

and

say

that ll is well.

NOTES

1.

A.

Gomme,

The Position of Women in Athens in the Fifth nd Fourth

Centuries,

Classical

Philology, January-October

925,

p.

4.

2. Sarah

Pomeroy,

Goddesses, Whores, Wives,

and

Slaves,

New York:

Schocken,

1975,

p.

67.

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