User:Vixwint/Athenian Democracy

Woops, was sorta just writing straight into the Wikipedia article for a while instead of updating my edits here :D.

Major edits so far:

Included a photo of the Constitution of Athens by Aristotle.

Under Development Subheading:

While the laws, later come to be known as the Draconian Constitution, were largely harsh and restrictive, with nearly all of them later being repealed, the written legal code was one of the first of its kind and considered to be one of the earliest developments of Athenian democracy.

Solon sought to break away at the strong influence noble families had on the government by broadening the government’s structure to include a wider range of property classes rather than just the aristocracy. His constitutional reforms included establishing four property classes: the pentakosiomedimnoi, the hippeis, the zeugitai, and the thetes. The classifications were based on how many medimnoi a man’s estate made per year with the pentakosiomedimnoi making at least 500 medimnoi, the hippeis making 300-500 medimnoi, the zeugitai making 200-300 medimnoi, and the thetes making under 200 medimnoi.

^the first mention of medimnoi is hyperlinked to a pre-existing page.

Solon also made significant economic reforms including cancelling existing debts, freeing debtors, and no longer allowing borrowing on the security of one's own person as a means of restructuring enslavement and debt in Athenian society.

Under Participation and Exclusions Subheading:

Women in Athens

With participation in Athenian Democracy was only being available to adult male Athenian citizens, women were left out of government and public roles. Even in the case of citizenry, the term was rarely used in reference to women. Rather, women were often referred to as an astē which meant ‘a woman belonging to the city’ or Attikē gunē which meant ‘an Attic woman/wife’. Even the term Athenian was largely reserved for just male citizens. Before Pericles’ law that decreed citizenship to be restricted to children of both Athenian men and women, the polis did not register women as citizens or keep any form of registration for them which resulted in many court cases of witnesses having to prove that women were wives of Athenian men.

In addition to being barred from any form of formal participation in government, women were also largely left out of public discussions and speeches with orators going as far as leaving out the names of wives and daughters of citizens or finding round about ways of referring to them. Pushed out of the public sphere, women’s role was confined to the private sphere of working in the home and being casted as a second-rate human, subservient to her male guardian whether that be a father or husband.

In the realm of Athenian men’s rationalization, part of the reasons for excluding women from politics came from misinformed views that women were more sexual, and intellectually handicapped. Athenian men believed that women had a higher sex drive and consequentially if given free range to engage in society would be more promiscuous. With this in mind, they feared that women may engage in affairs and have sons out of wedlock which would jeopardize the Athenian system of property and inheritance between heirs as well as the citizenry of potential children if their parentage was called into question. In terms of intelligence, Athenian men wrongly believed that women were less intelligent than men and therefore, similarly to barbarians and slaves of the time, were considered to be incapable of effectively participating and contributing to public discourse on political issues and affairs. These rationales, as well as the barring women from fighting in battle, another requirement of citizens, meant that in the eyes of Athenian men, by nature, women were not meant to be allowed citizenship.

Despite being barred from the right to vote and citizenship overall, women were granted the right to practice religion.

Under Main Bodies of Government subheading

Throughout its history, Athens had many different constitutions under its different leaders. Some of the history of Athens’ reforms as well a collection of constitutions from other Ancient Greek city-states was compiled and synthesized into a large all-encompassing constitution created by Aristotle and his students called the Constitution of the Athenians. The Constitution of the Athenians provides a run-down of the structure of Athens' government and its processes.

Under Citizenship in Athens subheading

For the most part, Athens followed a citizenship through birth criteria. Such criteria could be further divided into three categories: free birth from an Athenian father, free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father, and free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. Athenians considered circumstances of one’s birth to be relevant to the type of political identity and positions they could hold as citizens.

Citizenry in ancient Athens is speculated to have not simply been a legal obligation to the state, but also a form of ethnic-nationality. The title of “Athenian” was given to free residents deeming them citizens and granted them special privileges and protections over other residents in the city who were considered “non-citizens.” In the timeline of Athenian laws, Solon’s laws outlined a clear boundary between the protections that exist between citizens, Athenians, who were considered free and non-citizens, non-Athenians, who legally could be subjected to slavery.