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Women in Ancient Greece

Women in European History – 31 Jan. 2011

Types of Sources re: Ancient Greek women

•  Literary (Hesiod, Homer) •  Philosophical (Aristotle, Plato) •  Theatrical (Aristophanes, Euripides) •  Artistic (Parthenon frieze, vase paintings) •  Archaeological (houses, artifacts) •  Religious (ritual descriptions) •  Historical (Thucydides, Herodotus)

Problems with studying women of Ancient Greece

•  Ideology vs. reality •  Athenian vs. Spartan •  Slaves vs. wives vs. haeterae

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Limitations on Greek women

•  Prized for being submissive, loyal, patient, domestic, fertile, & productive

•  Penelope •  Persephone •  Antithesis = wild, uncontrolled, fickle (Amazon,

Aphrodite, Pandora)

•  Kyrieia (guardianship) by father/husband/brother/uncle/sons

•  Limited rights •  No vote; no contracts; no travel; no real estate; no

financial indep.

He said.... •  “A woman is an imperfect man.” (Aristotle)

•  “Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a snake more vile poison.” (Menander)

•  “The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men.” (Pericles)

•  “Man is the measure of all things.” (Protagoras)

Pandora

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Privileges of Greek women •  Priestesses were

essential to religious rituals, placating gods, & mourning the dead

•  Female goddesses were often independent

•  Spinning and weaving were fundamental to household economy

•  Various pan-Hellenic women-only festivals

Greek public fountain, crowded with women obtaining water

Marriage in Ancient Greece

Demeter & Persephone

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Women in Sparta

Bronze statuette of female runner Artemis, goddess of hunting and patron saint of Sparta

Examples of Greek women in Marilyn Katz, “Daughters of Demeter”

•  Genesis (50-51) •  Epic heroines (51-52) •  Agricultural myth

(55-56) •  Theatre (57-58) •  History (60) •  Medicine (63)

•  “the ancient polis was a ‘male club’ from which women were excluded...but they also played important religious, economic, and social roles...in city’s communal life.” (p. 69)

Conclusions

•  Difficult to generalize about Ancient Greek women

•  Challenge of contradictory primary sources

•  Yet clearly many women lived under severe restrictions

•  The ideology of submissive Athenian women lives on for 2000 years....