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Women in Classical Athens From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Women in society Venus symbol Society[show] Science Technology [show] Arts Humanities [show] Religion[show] Popular culture[show] By country[show] Portal icon Feminism portal v t e A woman's experience in Classical Athens (5th and 4th centuries BC) varied based on her social status. For example, slaves, metics, and freeborn women were all treated differently. Women were not considered to be true citizens,[1] and lacked the political freedoms that Athenian adult men had.[2] Women were not able to fully participate in many public activities; they mainly inhabited the domestic and religious realms of Athenian life.

Contents [hide] 1 Childhood 2 Women and the family 2.1 Marriage 2.2 Seclusion 2.3 Duties 3 Women and religion 4 Women's economic activities 5 Prostitution 6 Famous women in Athens 6.1 Athenian-born 6.2 Immigrated to Athens 7 Gallery 8 See also 9 References Childhood[edit source | edit] Infant mortality rates were high in the ancient world, with perhaps 25% dying at or soon after birth.[3] Pomeroy suggests that in addition to the natural risks of childbirth, infanticide would have been practiced by Athenians, with girls more likely to be killed than boys.[4] Grossman says that girls appeared to be commemorated about as often as boys on surviving Attic gravestones, though previous scholars have suggested that boys were commemorated up to twice as often.[5]

Athenian girls, like their brothers, were named in a ceremony ten days after their birth, known as the dekate.[6] The other ceremonies to celebrate childbirth – at five, seven, and forty days after the birth, respectively – were also observed for both boys and girls.[7] Later rites of passage, however, seem to have been more common for boys than girls, as well as more elaborate.[8]

Though boys could be adopted by men lacking an heir, it would have been rare that girls were. Hagnias, who adopted his niece in 396 BC, would have been extremely unusual in doing so.[4]

Classical Athenian girls probably reached menarche at the age of fourteen, at which point they would have married,[9] and girls who died before marriage were mourned for their failure to reach this point. Memorial vases for dead girls in classical Athens often portrayed her dressed as a bride, and were sometimes shaped like those used to transport water used to bathe before the wedding day.[10]

Athenian girls were not formally educated, needing only the domestic skills necessary for the running of the household, which would have been taught to them by their mothers.[11] Classical art shows that girls, as well as boys, played with toys such as spinning tops, hoops, and seesaws, as well as games such as piggyback.[12] The gravestone of Plangon, an Athenian girl aged about five, now in the Munich Glyptothek, shows her holding a doll and with knucklebones.[13]

We know more about the role of Athenian children in religion than we do about any other aspect of Athenian children's lives, and Athenian children seem to have played quite a prominent role in religious ceremonies.[14] We know that Athenian girls made offerings to Artemis on the eve of their marriage, as well as during pregnancy and at childbirth.[15] Though they are less common, girls as well as boys are portrayed on choes – jugs connected with the Anthesteria, the spring festival where Athenian children would have had their first taste of wine.[12]

Women and the family[edit source | edit] Marriage[edit source | edit]

Photograph of a statue showing the face of a woman from ancient Greece. The primary role of free women in Classical Athens was to marry and bear children.[16] In pursuit of this, Athenian women typically first married around the age of fourteen.[17] Prior to this point, they were looked after by their closest male relative, whose responsibility it was to select their husband.[18] Classical Athenian marriages were primarily concerned with the production of legitimate children who could inherit their parents' property;[19] women often married relatives.[18] This was especially the case for women who had no brothers, known as epikleroi, whose nearest male relative was given the first option to marry her.[20] Marriages usually occurred between a young woman and a much older man.

Athenian women married with a dowry which was intended to provide for her livelihood.[21] The daughters of even the poorest families seem to have had dowries worth ten minae, though rich families could provide much larger dowries: Demosthenes' sister, for instance, had a dowry of two talents (120 minae).[22] Only in exceptional circumstances would there have been no dowry, as its lack could have been taken as proof that no legitimate marriage occurred.[23] Occasionally, a dowry may be overlooked if a bride's familial connections are extremely favorable. Callias was supposed to have married Elpinice, a daughter of the noble Philaidae, in order to align himself with that family, being himself sufficiently wealthy that the lack of dowry did not affect him.[24]

In Classical Athenian marriages, both husband and wife could legally initiate a divorce, as could a woman's closest blood relative.[16] Upon divorce, the husband was required to either return the dowry, or pay 18% interest on it annually, so that her livelihood would continue to be provided for and she would be able to remarry.[24] Divorce usually occurred when a wife could not bear legitimate children, but if there were children at the time of the divorce, they remained in their father's house, and he continued to be responsible for their upbringing.[25] In cases where a woman committed adultery, her husband was legally required to divorce her.[26] If an epikleros was already married, she would be divorced so that she could marry her nearest relative.[26]

Seclusion[edit source | edit] Ideally, citizen women were kept away from men,[17] though in practice only rich families were able to strictly enforce this.[27] Women being embarrassed in the presence of men, even their relatives, was used as evidence of the respectability of their family.[28] Women tended to live in the more remote rooms of the house, farther away from windows and entrances.[29] Even the most respectable of citizen women came out for ritual occasions, primarily festivals, sacrifices, and funerals, where they would have had some interaction with men.[30] On these occasions, women were always accompanied by other women, servants, or their husbands. This practice ensured that the paternity of a child could not be questioned. Paternity was extremely important because of the economic importance of inheritance. Women in lower classes, however, were not held to these same expectations because they often had to work.

The ideal of respectable women staying out of the public eye was so entrenched in classical Athens that for a citizen woman to simply be named in classical Athens could be a source of shame.[31] Thucydides wrote in his History of the Peloponnesian War that "great honour is hers, whose reputation among males is least, whether for praise or blame".[32] Instead, women were referred to in relation to their male relatives,[33] a practice which could create confusion in cases where two sisters were both referred to as the son or brother of the same man.[34] Even in the case of law-court speeches, where the position of women is often a key point, especially in inheritance cases, orators seem to have deliberately avoided naming them.[35] The use of a woman's personal name – as in the case of Neaera and Phano in Demosthenes 59 – has been interpreted as implying that she is not respectable.[36]

Duties[edit source | edit] Women were in charge of all household duties. The duties of a housewife depended on the wealth of the household. In a rich household, the wife would distribute jobs to the slaves working both inside and outside of the house, while in poorer households, they would have been responsible for directly carrying out such household labours as preparing food, making clothing, and caring for children. Housewives not only were responsible for the slaves; they also had the task of training the household workers. The wives were expected to care for anyone in the household who became sick, and if a family member died, the housewife would be in charge of visiting the tomb regularly to present offerings.[37]

Women and religion[edit source | edit]

Woman kneeling before an altar. Attic red-figure kylix, 5th BC, Stoa of Attalos Religion was the one area of public life where women could participate freely.[38] Women's ritual activities included being responsible for mourning at funerals,[39] involvement in cult activity which was exclusive to women, and participating in rituals such as sacrifice as part of the Athenian citizen body.

The most important festival reserved solely for women was the Thesmophoria, a fertility rite for Demeter reserved only for married noblewomen, during which women spent three days on Demeter's hilltop sanctuary performing rites and celebrating.[40] The specific rituals of the Thesmophoria are unknown, but pigs were certainly sacrificed, and the remains of those sacrificed the previous year were offered to the goddess.[41] Other festivals reserved for women included the Brauronia, a festival celebrating Artemis of Brauron, to whom virgin girls were consecrated before their marriage,[41] and the Arrhephoria, another puberty rite in which girls who had spent the previous year serving Athena left the Acropolis by a passage close to the precinct of Aphrodite, carrying baskets filled with items unknown to them.[42]

In Athens, the priestess of Athena (the city's eponymous goddess) held much honor. She was consulted for major decisions and her words were well respected. During the Panathenaea (a festival to celebrate the birthday of Athena) the virgin daughters of nobles were chosen to carry sacred baskets in the procession. Not being selected for this honor could lead to doubts about a young noblewoman's chastity.

Women contributed every fourth year in the making of a new peplos or robe for the statue of Athena. This task was begun by two girls between the ages of seven and eleven and then finished by other women chosen for the task.[43]

Women's economic activities[edit source | edit] Legally, Athenian women's economic powers were strictly constrained. Athenian women were forbidden from engaging in contracts worth more than a medimnus of barley, enough to feed an average family for six days.[44] We know of at least one instance, however, where an Athenian woman dealt with a significantly larger sum.[45]

While Athenian women were not legally permitted to dispose of large sums of money, they frequently did have large sums associated with them, in the form of dowries, which were to be used to support them throughout their lives.[24] The income derived from a dowry could be significant, and the larger the dowry a woman had relative to her husband's wealth, the more influence she was likely to have in the household, as if the couple divorced, the wife would retain the dowry.[46] In Athens, “women could control property, even land -the most valued possession in their society -through inheritance and dowry, although they faced more legal restrictions than men did. . . Daughters did not inherit a portion of their father's property if there were any living son” (Martin 136). Although these rights had many restrictions, women in classical Athens exercised property rights not seen by many women in societies of this time.

While it was expected that respectable Athenian women stayed separate from unrelated men, citizen women did work as merchants,[47] and also went out to the market to buy goods.[48] Wealthy women would have owned slaves who they could send out on errands, but poorer women would have needed to go themselves.[49] Athenian citizens subscribed to the idea that it was degrading for citizen-women to work,[50] though women both free and unfree are attested working in various capacities, both those which seem to have been a natural extension of those jobs women would have been expected to do in the household, such as textiles work and washing,[51] and those for which there is no such obvious link: women are attested as working, for instance, as cobblers, gilders, net-weavers, potters, and grooms.[52]

Prostitution[edit source | edit]

A man with a Heteria; red-figure cup, ca. 510-500 BC. Prostitution was common in Athens throughout the classical period, with both "pornai" (common prostitutes) and "hetaerae" ("companions", who were generally better educated and more sophisticated than pornai) working in Athens. Many of these were slaves or metics, and state-run brothels staffed by slaves were said to have been established as part of the reforms of Solon.[53][54]

Prostitutes were often hired by the hosts of symposiums as entertainment for guests. Evidence of these activities can be seen on red-figure vase paintings. Prostitutes were also drawn on drinking cups as a form of pinups for male entertainment.[55]

The most famous Hetaira[according to whom?] was Aspasia, who was highly valued by Pericles who considered her clever and knowledgeable about politics.[citation needed] It is said even Socrates respected her wisdom. Besides Aspasia, Hetairai were considered by some[who?] to live better than free women. Hetairai were able to manage money and also choose whom they wanted to be with. They had access to the intellectual life of Athens, but were not citizens themselves, which was their most unattractive feature. On top of this, the children of a hetaira were not granted citizenship status, regardless of whether the father was a citizen himself, which in turn meant that citizens of irregular birth often could not inherit estates or property.[56] Hetairai practiced infanticide but would on occasion keep their children and even raise the children that others left to die. They preferred daughters to sons so that they could train them in the trade of prostitution. Hetairai were even known to buy slaves to train as future prostitutes so in their old age they would have a source of income, creating brothels.[57]

Famous women in Athens[edit source | edit] Athenian-born[edit source | edit] Asclepigenia Perictione Immigrated to Athens[edit source | edit] Aspasia Aedesia Axiothea of Phlius Diotima of Mantinea Lastheneia of Mantinea Hipparchia of Maroneia Phryne Gallery[edit source | edit]

A woman at the laver, with a water bucket, a skyphos and a wineskin; Attic red-figure kylix.

A women near an altar; interior of an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 450 BC.

A woman with Eros; Athenian red-figured skyphos, ca. 420–410 BC.

A woman pouring a libation; Attic white-ground lekythos, ca. 460 BC. See also[edit source | edit] Representation of women in Athenian tragedy Women in ancient Sparta Hetaira Myrtis, an 11-year-old girl from ancient Athens Ancient Greek Wedding Customs Classical Greece Women in Greece

External Links[edit source | edit]

Ancient Greece 

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